John Eliot Gardiner is revered as one of the world’s most innovative and dynamic musicians, and as one of the leading personalities in music today. His work as the founder and artistic director of the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique has made him a key figure both in the early music revival and in historically informed performance practice.
Recent triumphs include performances of Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and symphonies by Mozart and Haydn in Europe and the USA. In 2023 the live-streamed performance of Bach’s St John Passion from the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford conducted by John Eliot Gardiner was nominated for a Grammy.
Other highlights of recent seasons have included new productions of Handel’s Semele and Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini and the touring project Monteverdi 450, which won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.
John Eliot Gardiner’s wide-ranging repertory is documented on numerous prize-winning recordings with the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra and other leading ensembles. He has won two Grammy Awards, and has received more Gramophone Awards than any other living artist.
With a repertory that stretches from the 16th to the 20th century, John Eliot Gardiner regularly appears with leading international orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.
In 2013 his monograph Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach was published; it went on to be awarded the Prix des Muses of the Singer-Polignac Foundation. He was awarded a knighthood for his services to music in the 1998 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
