Biography (read more)
Sir John Eliot Gardiner (born April 20, 1943) is an English conductor, largely self-taught in conducting, who studied history at King’s College, Cambridge, then continued musical studies under Thurston Dart at King’s College London and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He launched his conducting career in 1964 with Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine and founded the Monteverdi Choir in 1964 and the Monteverdi Orchestra in 1968, later renamed the English Baroque Soloists as it moved to period instruments. He served as music director of the Opéra National de Lyon (1983–1988) and founded the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in 1990. In 2000 he undertook the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, performing all of Bach’s surviving sacred cantatas across Europe and the United States over 52 weeks.
Gardiner is a pioneering figure in historically informed, period-instrument performance of Baroque and Classical music, recognized with a Gramophone Hall of Fame induction and widely regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of Bach and Monteverdi.
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