Carnegie Hall

The English Baroque Soloists (EBS), founded by Sir John Eliot Gardiner in 1978, seeks to challenge preconceptions of 200 years of music ranging from Monteverdi to Mozart and Haydn. Equally at home in chamber, symphonic, and operatic performances, its distinctively warm and incisive playing is instantly recognizable.

One of the world’s leading period instrument orchestras, the ensemble has performed at many of the most prestigious venues, including Teatro alla Scala, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and the Sydney Opera House.

The EBS and the Monteverdi Choir, conducted by Dinis Sousa, will perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor, as well as Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, on their American tour in October 2023 following their European tour of Bach’s monumental work in April. In May 2023 the EBS and the Monteverdi Choir, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, were honored to perform at the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

In 2022 the ensemble completed a number of successful tours, including symphonies by Mozart and Haydn across Europe and the US. In 2021, the EBS performed its first livestreamed concert, Bach’s St. John Passion with the Monteverdi Choir. The ensemble took part in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage with the Monteverdi Choir in 2020. In 2019, it made its inaugural visit to South America for the Cartagena International Music Festival and subsequently undertook a tour of Handel’s Semele with the Monteverdi Choir. The ensemble then gave its debut performances in Russia, alongside the Monteverdi Choir, before returning to South America for further inaugural concerts. In 2017, it took part in the Royal Philharmonic Society’s award-winning Monteverdi 450 project with the Monteverdi Choir, in which they performed all three of Monteverdi’s surviving operas across Europe and in the US. The EBS has also participated in major opera productions alongside the Monteverdi Choir and recorded Mozart’s greatest operas for Deutsche Grammophon in the 1990s.

The English Baroque Soloists is under the patronage of His Majesty King Charles III.

The Monteverdi Choir, founded by Sir John Eliot Gardiner in 1964, will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2024. Over the course of its lifespan, it has established itself as one of greatest choirs in the world. Through a combination of consummate technique, historically informed performance practice, and a strong appreciation for visual impact, the Monteverdi Choir constantly strives to bring fresh perspectives, immediacy, and drama to its performances.

This summer the Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, and outstanding soloists conducted by Dinis Sousa performed Berlioz’s opera Les Troyens on a critically acclaimed European tour. In May 2023, the Monteverdi Choir, conducted by Gardiner, was honored to perform at the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

The Monteverdi Choir has taken part in a variety of projects across different repertoires, ranging from Bach’s Mass in B Minor, St. Matthew Passion, and St. John Passion with the English Baroque Soloists, to Berlioz’s Les Troyens, L’enfance du Christ, and La damnation de Faust; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa solemnis; and Verdi’s Requiem with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. It has also performed in several staged opera productions. Among its many trailblazing tours was the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, which was recorded and released by the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra’s record label, Soli Deo Gloria. In 2017, it took part in the Royal Philharmonic Society’s award-winning Monteverdi 450 project, with the English Baroque Soloists, in which they performed all three of Monteverdi’s surviving operas across Europe and in the US.

The Monteverdi Choir is under the patronage of His Majesty King Charles III.

Dinis Sousa will lead the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists’ autumn program in 2023, featuring Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, including their American tour. In August and September 2023, he stepped in to lead the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, alongside outstanding soloists, on their critically acclaimed European tour of Berlioz’s Les Troyens. Their performance at the BBC Proms, which was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, received five-star reviews from the Financial Times, The Times, The Observer, The Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Arts Desk, and Bachtrack.

Mr. Sousa is the first associate conductor of the three Monteverdi ensembles in the history of the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras. The UK-based, Portuguese conductor has worked closely with the Monteverdi ensembles and with other esteemed orchestras that include the London Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, and Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich. In January 2019, he conducted the English Baroque Soloists in four concerts at the Cartagena International Music Festival, and at the 2016 BBC Proms, he co-conducted the Monteverdi Choir’s critically acclaimed performance of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, which was televised on BBC4.

During the 2023–2024 season, he makes his debut with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and returns to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Sinfonietta Riga.

Mr. Sousa is principal conductor of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, a position he has held since April 2021. During the 2023–2024 season, the ensemble will present a complete cycle of Robert Schumann’s symphonies at The Glasshouse in addition to his choral masterpiece Das Paradies und die Peri. He is founder and artistic director of Orquestra XXI, an award-winning orchestra bringing together some of the best young Portuguese musicians from around Europe to perform at the most prestigious venues in Portugal. In recognition of his work with Orquestra XXI, he was awarded the title of Knight of the Order of Prince Henry in Portugal.

Australian British soprano Samantha Clarke is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and a Tait Memorial Trust Scholar.

In the 2023–2024 season, she makes debuts with Opera Australia in La traviata, Pinchgut Opera in Theodora, Garsington Opera in Le nozze di Figaro, and Seiji Ozawa Music Academy in Così fan tutte. In concert, she tours to the US and Canada with the Monteverdi Choir, sings in concert performances of Das Rheingold with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Simone Young, performs a program of Baroque arias with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Erin Helyard, and appears at London’s Wigmore Hall with The Mozartists and Ian Page.

Recent highlights have included La traviata for the West Australian Opera, Così fan tutte for Opera Queensland and The Grange Festival, A Midsummer Night’s Dream for The Grange Festival, La bohème for Opera North, Georgiana for the Buxton International Festival, Fidelio with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Simone Young, and The Golden Cockerel for the Adelaide Festival.

Her awards have included the 2019 Guildhall Gold Medal, second prize and audience prize in The Grange Festival’s 2019 International Singing Competition, and the 2017 Royal Northern College of Music Gold Medal.

Soprano Hilary Cronin was selected by BBC Music Magazine as a “rising star” of 2022 and won first prize and the audience prize at the 2021 London Handel Festival’s international singing competition. She trained at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and Royal Holloway, University of London. Her current engagements include Acis and Galatea and Amadigi with The English Concert; Arianna in Creta with La Nuova Musica; St. John Passion with the BBC Philharmonic; J. S. Bach cantatas with London Handel Orchestra; Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Royal Orchestral Society; Messiah with Britten Sinfonia, The Hallé, The Really Big Chorus, and The Sixteen; Silete venti with The King’s Consort; Nelson Mass with The Sixteen; and Mozart’s Exsultate jubilate and Pergolesi’s Stabat mater with Israel Camerata. She will also sing Fauré’s Requiem at the Newbury Spring Festival, appear in Command Performance: Music for an Empress with the Academy of Ancient Music, and perform in J. S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and St. John Passion as well as Handel’s Messiah with Polyphony.

Previously she has sung in Agrippina with English Touring Opera and worked with major orchestras that include the Freiburger Barockorchester, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Arcangelo, English Chamber Orchestra, Florilegium, Irish Baroque Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, as well as making her debuts at the Handel Festival, Halle for Francesca Cuzzoni: Handel’s Diva and at Teatro La Fenice, where she sang Fauré’s Requiem. Her recordings include Dido and Aeneas with La Nuova Musica. She regularly performs with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists.

Soprano Alison Ponsford-Hill is a soloist, ensemble singer, conductor, and dedicated teacher. She has performed for nearly 20 years with esteemed ensembles such as the Monteverdi Choir, The Tallis Scholars, and Polyphony, to audiences worldwide in renowned concert halls. In recent years, she has also enjoyed chorus mastering for the Monteverdi Choir and London Voices, as well as running her own ensembles. She began her musical journey as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral before studying at Trinity College Cambridge and King’s College London. She is a respected teacher and currently teaches at Eton College and University College Oxford. She has also worked with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and the Royal School of Church Music Millennium Youth Choir, and has made a notable contribution through her work with the charity Songbound, running choirs for disadvantaged children in India.

British mezzo-soprano Bethany Horak-Hallett studied music at the University of Leeds, gaining a master’s in music performance, and completed her training at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She is one of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Rising Stars of the Enlightenment and a Samling Artist. She was a finalist in the 2020 Cesti Competition at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music and won second prize in the 2021 London Handel Festival’s international singing competition.

Her opera engagements have included Così fan tutte for Garsington Opera, Rusalka for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester with Robin Ticciati, and Kát’a Kabanová at Glyndebourne.

On the concert stage, Ms. Horak-Hallett has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment singing Bach cantatas and in Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo directed by Steven Devine; Bach’s St. John Passion with Mark Padmore; and Haydn’s “Nelson” Mass with John Butt. She joined the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Dinis Sousa as soloist for Bach Cantata BWV 199, and made her BBC Proms debut with the Monteverdi Choir with Sir John Eliot Gardiner singing Handel’s Dixit Dominus (broadcast on BBC television and radio). She toured with Holland Baroque; sang Bach and Handel with the Academy of Ancient Music and Handel and Mozart arias with Southbank Sinfonia Baroque with Adrian Butterfield; and has appeared with the English Chamber Orchestra and James Sherlock, and The Instruments of Time & Truth and Christopher Buckland. She has given recitals at the London Handel Festival and for Garsington Opera. Among her films and recordings are John Eccles’s Semele with the Academy of Ancient Music and Julian Perkins; Bach and Telemann for Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Player; and Messiah for the Voces8 Foundation’s Live from London Festival.

Upcoming engagements include Princess Ida with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and John Wilson; roles in Iolanta and Will Todd’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for If Opera; Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the Huddersfield Choral Society; and Messiah with The Dunedin Consort and John Butt.

Jonathan Hanley is a British tenor working as both a soloist and ensemble singer, with a particular interest in Baroque vocal music. A history graduate from the University of York, he has since been a member of Genesis Sixteen and an apprentice with the Monteverdi Choir. Forthcoming performances include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in York and Oxford, along with a busy international schedule with the vocal ensemble Stile Antico.

He has performed as a soloist in the UK and Europe, appearing with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, Academy of Ancient Music, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Nevill Holt Opera, Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, and Instruments of Time & Truth. He has recently performed J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, St. John Passion, Christmas Oratorio, and St. Matthew Passion; Handel’s Acis and Galatea; Mendelssohn’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht; Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers; and Britten’s St. Nicolas. He also enjoys performing English songs and lieder.

Mr. Hanley works regularly with some of the finest vocal ensembles in the world, most notably Gramophone Award winners Stile Antico and the Monteverdi Choir, with which he is regularly a step-out soloist. He is also a member of SANSARA, and appears frequently with groups such as Polyphony, Tenebrae, The English Concert, BBC Singers, and Yorkshire Baroque Soloists. He has also performed with the Monteverdi Choir in staged productions of Handel’s Semele, Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini and Les Troyens. He has recorded with Stile Antico, Monteverdi Choir, SANSARA, and The Sixteen.

Nick Pritchard was an inaugural member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Rising Stars and is a Samling Artist. Described as a “masterly evangelist” (The Guardian), he has sung Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew passions around the world. His recording of the St. John Passion on Deutsche Grammophon was recently nominated for a Grammy Award.

The 2023–2024 season includes performances with the Early Opera Company and Les Talens Lyriques; Lully’s Atys at Opéra royal de Versailles and at the Wiener Konzerthaus; the Evangelist with Irish Baroque Orchestra and Peter Whelan, Residentie Orkest and Richard Egarr, and Stavanger Symfoniorkester and Masato Suzuki; George Benjamin’s Written on Skin with the Finnish Radio Symphony; Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Flemish Radio Choir; and Britten’s St. Nicolas at the Aldeburgh Festival.

On the concert stage, Mr. Pritchard has performed with Ensemble Pygmalion, Concerto Köln, Les Talens Lyriques, Les Violons du Roy, Orchestre du chambre de Paris, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The English Concert, Early Opera Company, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Gabrieli Consort & Players, Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, and Early Opera Company. He made his BBC Proms debut with the Britten Sinfonia and David Bates performing Mozart’s Requiem.

Bass-baritone Alexander Ashworth studied at the Royal Academy of Music and has sung at Glyndebourne, the Welsh National Opera, and Scottish Opera. Abroad he has performed for the Opéra Comique in Paris, Opéra de Lille, and Icelandic Opera.

He sings regularly on the concert stage and has worked as a soloist for conductors who include Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Colin Davis, and Paul McCreesh. Recent appearances include the UK premiere with the Classical Opera Company of Telemann’s Orfeo; Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem with the Hallé Orchestra; Messiah with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and City of Birmingham Choir in Symphony Hall, Birmingham; a tour of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio; and performances of Brahms’s German Requiem in China.

Mr. Ashworth’s recordings include Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with the London Symphony Orchestra, Monteverdi’s Vespers with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Bach’s Mass in B Minor with English Baroque Soloists and Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne.

Recent engagements include Oedipus Rex with the Berliner Philharmoniker, St. Matthew Passion on tour across Europe, and Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem for the Three Choirs Festival. He recently performed in the inaugural Alamo Baroque Festival in Texas and toured throughout Europe giving more than 20 performances of Bach’s cantatas with Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

Bass-baritone Frederick Long has forged a richly diverse career, garnering acclaim in repertoire from Bach to Bernstein. Noted for the musicality of his performances, alongside vivid stagecraft, he is establishing himself as one of Britain’s most exciting and versatile young singers.

Mr. Long received a first degree in music from the University of Bristol and a recital diploma from the Royal Academy of Music (where he was recently made an associate professor), and furthered his training at the National Opera Studio. Recent highlights include Messiah with the Irish Baroque Orchestra at Wigmore Hall and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in his debuts at Teatro alla Scala and the Palace of Versailles under Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

Since making his debut at Glyndebourne, he has gone on to work at all the major opera houses in the UK, including ENO, Welsh National Opera, Opera Holland Park, Opera North, and Royal Opera House. Recent performances for English Touring Opera in Dido and Aeneas, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and Così fan tutte received widespread critical praise.

Equally at home in contemporary repertoire, he performed in The Yellow Sofa for Glyndebourne on Tour, Don Giovanni for Silent Opera (a digital reimagining of the original), and in Tansy Davies’s Between Worlds for ENO. With Royal Academy Opera, he created the role of Willi Graf in the world premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies’s Kommilitonen!

Mr. Long is in demand on the concert stage at home and abroad. Highlights include St. Matthew Passion at the York Early Music Festival, Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music, Haydn’s Creation with the London Mozart Players, and romantic works including Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Bristol Choral Society, Elgar’s The Kingdom at Leith Hill Music Festival, and Verdi’s Requiem with English Festival Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. He has also performed with some of the UK’s leading solo-voice ensembles including I Fagiolini and Solomon’s Knot.