Carnegie Hall

Named for the Greek God of music and the sun, Apollo’s Fire is a Grammy Award–-winning period-instrument orchestra founded by Jeannette Sorrell. It is dedicated to the Baroque ideal that music should evoke various Affekts (or passions) in listeners. Apollo’s Fire is a collection of creative artists who share Ms. Sorrell’s passion for drama and rhetoric.

Apollo’s Fire has performed five European tours, with sold-out concerts at the BBC Proms in London, the Aldeburgh Festival, Madrid’s Teatro Real, Bordeaux’s Grand Théàtre de l’Opéra, and major venues in Lisbon, Metz (France), and Bregenz (Austria); as well as concerts at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, Wexford’s National Opera House, Birmingham International Series, Tuscan Landscapes Festival, and Belfast Castle with a live broadcast carried by the Associated Press of Europe.

North American tour engagements include sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall (2018), Tanglewood (2015 and 2017), Ravinia (2017 and 2018),  The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2013, 2014, and 2015), Boston Early Music Festival, and Library of Congress, as well as concerts at the Aspen Music Festival, Caramoor, and major venues in Toronto, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The ensemble has performed two major US tours of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 (2010 and 2014) and a nine-concert tour of the Brandenburg Concertos in 2013. At home in Cleveland, Apollo’s Fire frequently enjoys sold-out performances at its subscription series, which has drawn national attention for creative programming.

With more than 9 million views of its YouTube videos, Apollo’s Fire is one of the most popular Baroque orchestras on the internet. The ensemble also launched a “Worldwide Watch-at-Home Series” in October 2020, bringing its subscription concerts into the homes of patrons around the world.

Apollo’s Fire has released 29 commercial albums and won a 2019 Grammy Award for Songs of Orpheus with tenor Karim Sulayman. The ensemble’s 2021 album Vivaldi: The Four Seasons with violinist Francisco Fullana was chosen by The Sunday Times (London) as one of the “Best 10 Classical Albums of 2021.” Nine of the ensemble’s albums have become best-sellers on the Billboard Classical Chart: Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610; Bach: Brandenburg Concertos and Harpsichord Concertos; The Power of Love with soprano Amanda Forsythe; and Ms. Sorrell’s five crossover programs: Come to the River: An Early American Gathering, Sacrum Mysterium: A Celtic Christmas Vespers, Sugarloaf Mountain: An Appalachian Gathering, Sephardic Journey: Wanderings of the Spanish Jews, and Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain.

Grammy Award winner Jeannette Sorrell is recognized internationally as one of today’s most creative early-music conductors. She has been credited by BBC Music Magazine with forging “a vibrant, life-affirming approach to the remaking of early music.”

The daughter of a European immigrant father and American mother, Ms. Sorrell grew up as a musician and dancer. She studied conducting under Leonard Bernstein, Robert Spano, and Sir Roger Norrington at the Tanglewood and Aspen music festivals. As a harpsichordist, she studied with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam, and won First Prize and the Audience Choice Award in the Spivey International Harpsichord Competition, competing against more than 70 harpsichordists from Europe, Israel, the US, and the Soviet Union.

Ms. Sorrell is the founder and artistic director of Apollo’s Fire, and has led the renowned period ensemble as conductor and harpsichord soloist in sold-out concerts from Carnegie Hall and London’s BBC Proms to the Tanglewood and Ravinia festivals. At home in Cleveland, she and Apollo’s Fire have built one of the largest audiences of any Baroque orchestra in North America.

In demand with symphony orchestras and period groups alike, Ms. Sorrell made her conducting debut last month with the New York Philharmonic (Handel’s Messiah). She makes her debut this spring with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion. She has repeatedly conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Utah Symphony, and New World Symphony, and also led the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Opera Theatre of St. Louis with the St. Louis Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and Royal Northern Sinfonia (UK), among others. Upcoming engagements include returns to Philharmonia Baroque, and the Seattle and New World symphonies.

Ms. Sorrell is the subject of the 2019 documentary Playing with Fire by Academy Award–winning director Allan Miller. She has also been featured on Living the Classical Life. She has attracted national awards for her creative programming and her storytelling approach to early music, which has attracted many new listeners through the use of contextual and dramatic elements.

Ms. Sorrell holds an honorary doctorate from Case Western University, an artist diploma from Oberlin Conservatory, and an award from the American Musicological Society. Passionate about guiding the next generation of performers, she is the architect of Apollo’s Fire’s Young Artist Apprentice Program, which has produced many of the nation’s leading young professional Baroque players; and the new Artistic Leadership Fellows Program.

Spanish-born Francisco Fullana is an international solo violinists known for fully embracing and absorbing Baroque performance practice. He is the winner of four international violin competitions as well as an Avery Fisher Career Grant. As artist-in-residence with Apollo’s Fire, he performs with the orchestra in 19 concerts during the 2021–2022 season, including at Carnegie Hall and at Cleveland’s Severance Hall. He also shares his love of music and his immigrant story with youth at several Spanish-speaking public schools in Cleveland and Chicago, in collaboration with Apollo’s Fire musicians.

Mr. Fullana’s solo debut album, Bach’s Long Shadow—which juxtaposes J. S. Bach’s partitas on gut strings and Baroque setup with virtuoso solo violin works from the next three centuries—was chosen by BBC Music Magazine as “Instrumental Album of the Month.” His recent album Vivaldi: The Four Seasons with Apollo’s Fire has also won acclaim. His lifelong fascination with Baroque music influenced his 2018 debut album, Through the Lens of Time.

Mr. Fullana has been the featured soloist in concerto performances with the Bayerische Philharmonie, Munich Radio Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Mr. Fullana is a Bowers Program Artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has given performances at the Marlboro Festival and the Perlman Music Program, as well as collaborated with Mitsuko Uchida and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Pacifica, Takács, and Cleveland quartets.

Mr. Fullana performs on the 1735 “Mary Portman” ex-Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù violin, on loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.