Biography

Monteverdi Choir

The Monteverdi Choir was founded by John Eliot Gardiner in 1964 and celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2024. Over the course of the last few decades, it has established itself as one of the leading international vocal ensembles, enlivening choral music worldwide through its constant striving for new perspectives, immediacy and drama.

During the 2023/24 season the Choir performs Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, gives performances of Beethoven’s Mass in C major with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in London and Paris, and undertakes a European tour of Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the English Baroque Soloists. The Choir also gives concerts of Bach’s sacred motets in London and Leipzig; these works have been part of the Choir’s repertory for more than five decades and demonstrate its singers’ technical virtuosity and deep understanding of text.

In 2023 the Choir appeared in concert performances of Les Troyens at the Salzburg Festival, and in Versailles, Berlin and London. With the English Baroque Soloists under Dinis Sousa the Monteverdi Choir undertook an acclaimed European tour performing Bach’s Mass in B minor. The two ensembles also toured North America performing the Mass in B minor alongside Handel’s oratorio L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.

In recent seasons, the Choir’s appearances have included performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion (sung from memory) with the English Baroque Soloists, and Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust and Verdi’s Requiem with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. In 2017 the Monteverdi Choir participated in the project Monteverdi 450, which consisted of performances of all Monteverdi’s surviving operas, and which won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. Other past highlights have included the project Bach Cantata Pilgrimage 2000, which was recorded and released on the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra’s own record label, Soli Deo Gloria.

The Monteverdi Choir is under the patronage of HM King Charles III. In January 2024 the Choir was named Best Choir at the Oper! Awards.

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Current as of July 2024

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Monteverdi Choir
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Monteverdi Choir English Baroque Soloists John Eliot Gardiner
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Monteverdi Choir
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Monteverdi Choir
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Monteverdi Choir
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