Carnegie Hall

The English Concert is an outstanding orchestra—exceptional in the world-renowned quality, ambition, and variety of its live and recorded output; unique in the zeal of its players for working and performing together; unwavering in its desire to connect with its audience around the world.

Under the artistic direction of Harry Bicket and principal guest Kristian Bezuidenhout, The English Concert has earned a reputation for combining urgency, passion, and fire with precision, delicacy, and beauty. The artistic partners it collaborates with reflect and enhance its pursuit of new ways to bring music to life. Joyce DiDonato, Dame Sarah Connolly, Iestyn Davies, Alison Balsom, Trevor Pinnock, Dominic Dromgoole, Tom Morris, and many more have brought their extraordinary skills to individual projects and continue to help the ensemble shape the way it performs.

One cornerstone of the orchestra’s annual cycle is its international Handel opera tour. Blossoming from an ongoing relationship with Carnegie Hall, the itinerary now regularly takes it to the Theater an der Wien, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Elbphilharmonie, and the Barbican Centre, and the roster of great halls continues to grow. Meanwhile, its regular London series allows it to explore a radically different path, presenting programs for its home audience that challenge and inspire the musicians. The English Concert is the associate orchestra at Garsington Opera. In 2023, The English Concert launched its ambitious Handel for All project, which aims to film and make freely available all of Handel’s works online. Visit englishconcert.co.uk for more information.

Internationally renowned as an opera and concert conductor of distinction, Harry Bicket is especially noted for his interpretation of Baroque and Classical repertoire and since 2007 has been artistic director of The English Concert, one of Europe’s finest period orchestras. In 2013, following regular guest appearances at Santa Fe Opera, he became its chief conductor and in 2018 was appointed music director. Since taking up his position, he has conducted Così fan tutte, Fidelio, La finta giardiniera, Roméo et Juliette, Alcina, and Candide. In the 2019 season, he also performed Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Renée Fleming. Born in Liverpool, Mr. Bicket studied at the Royal College of Music and the University of Oxford.

Projects with The English Concert in the 2022–2023 season included tours to Europe and the US with Handel’s Solomon and a fully staged Ariodante for the Opéra national de Paris’s Palais Garnier, in addition to their London season and recording projects. Mr. Bicket also returned to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a special collaboration with the Joffrey Ballet, as well as to the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Canadian Opera Company for Le nozze di Figaro, and Santa Fe Opera.

Born in Staffordshire, Lucy Crowe studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where she is a Fellow. She was made an OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours.

With repertoire ranging from Purcell, Handel, and Mozart to Verdi and Janáček, she has sung with premier opera companies and orchestras and at festivals throughout the world, including the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Glyndebourne Festival; English National Opera; Teatro Real in Madrid; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Bavarian State Opera; the Metropolitan Opera; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Berliner Philharmoniker; Vienna Philharmonic; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Scottish Chamber Orchestra; the Monteverdi Orchestra; Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; London Symphony Orchestra; and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Recent opera highlights include her debut at Dutch National Opera in the title role of Rodelinda, Musetta in La bohème and Poppea in Agrippina at the Royal Opera House, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera, and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

Highlights in concert this season include the title role in Rodelinda with The English Concert and Harry Bicket on a world tour; Haydn and Weber arias with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Maxim Emelyanychev; Mozart arias with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the Handel+Haydn Society, both conducted by Bernard Labadie; Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with the Orchestra of Age of Enlightenment and András Schiff; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mass in C Minor on tour with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra.

Christine Rice’s operatic appearances have taken her to the Metropolitan Opera; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Opéra national de Paris; Bayerische Staatsoper; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Teatro Real; and Opernhaus Zürich, as well as the Glyndebourne and Salzburg festivals. Her wide-ranging repertoire includes the roles of Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Erda in Das Rheingold, Jezibaba in Rusalka, Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, the title role in Carmen, Concepción in L’heure espagnole, Giulietta in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Marguerite in La damnation de Faust, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, the title roles in Gloriana and The Rape of Lucretia, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Penelope in Il ritorno d’Ulisse, Irene in Theodora, Ruggiero in Alcina, and the title role in Ariodante.

She created the roles of Miranda and Blanca in the world premieres of Adès’s The Tempest and The Exterminating Angel, and Ariadne in Birtwistle’s The Minotaur.

Highlights of Ms. Rice’s 2023–2024 season include Auntie in Peter Grimes for the English National Opera, Blanca in The Exterminating Angel for the Opéra national de Paris, Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Marchesa del Poggio in Rossini’s Un giorno di regno for Garsington Opera, and Eduige in an international concert tour of Handel’s Rodelinda with The English Concert and Harry Bicket. She also has a very busy concert career, appearing throughout the UK, Europe, and North America, and at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International and Aldeburgh festivals working with conductors who include Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, Fabio Luisi, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

In 2017, Iestyn Davies was awarded an MBE by the Queen for his services to music. A former Cambridge choral scholar, he went on to study singing at the Royal Academy of Music. An esteemed Handelian, he has astounded audiences globally with his vocal agility in roles such as the titular Orlando, Rinaldo, and Giulio Cesare, and as Ottone in Agrippina and David in Saul. His intelligent and considered interpretations have led to fruitful collaborations with Thomas Adès, George Benjamin, and Nico Muhly. He has appeared on Broadway, making his debut in a revival of his West End theater project, Farinelli and the King, with Mark Rylance, for which he received an Olivier Award nomination. A celebrated recitalist, with repertoire ranging from Dowland to Clapton, he has twice been awarded the Gramophone Classical Music Awards Recital Award, and in 2017 won the Gramophone Classical Music Awards Baroque Vocal Award.

Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen brings his “ravishing … otherworldly” (Opera News) instrument to a broad range of repertoire spanning the Baroque to the contemporary. Acclaimed as both a “young star” and “complete artist” (The New York Times) and as “extravagantly gifted ... poised to redefine what’s possible for singers of this distinctive voice type” (San Francisco Chronicle), Mr. Nussbaum Cohen’s passion for creating performances of great vocal beauty and dramatic intensity have earned him a reputation as “a redefining force in the countertenor field” (Limelight Magazine).

Mr. Nussbaum Cohen finds a close affinity between the ancient musical traditions of his Jewish heritage and the Baroque works composing much of his operatic repertoire. Equally content performing new works, his first commercial recording project—the world premiere of Kenneth Fuchs’s Poems of Life performed with the London Symphony Orchestra under JoAnn Falletta—was honored with a Grammy Award in 2019; and his interpretation of the “Refugee’s Aria” from Jonathan Dove’s Flight provided the centerpiece for his extensive catalogue of competition successes, including winning the top prizes at the Metropolitan Opera’s 2017 Laffont Competition, Houston Grand Opera’s Eleanor McCollum Competition, and the Dallas Opera Guild Competition, and winning a George and Nora London Foundation Award. He counts among his career highlights his recent Metropolitan Opera debut as Rosencrantz in the US premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet, and he looks forward to upcoming world premieres at La Monnaie de Munt (Mikael Karlsson’s Fanny and Alexander) and Deutsche Oper Berlin (in the title role in Aribert Reimann’s Dorian Gray).

Emmy Award–winning, Billboard-charting, American tenor Eric Ferring is known internationally as “a prodigiously gifted lyric tenor” (Opera News) for his “fine, gleaming tenor” (New York Classical Review), as well as for having “a beautifully round and warm timbre, expressive, and with great finesse” (Ôlyrix). His expertise ranges from early bel canto repertoire and the music of Handel and Mozart to the origination of contemporary operatic roles.

He made his anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut during the 2021–2022 season singing Pong in Turandot, followed by Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor, a Royal Herald in Don Carlos, and covering Grimoaldo in Rodelinda. He made his debut at Santa Fe Opera, singing Fenton in Sir David McVicar’s new production of Falstaff, as well as his Spoleto Festival debut in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In fall 2022, Mr. Ferring released his solo debut album, with pianist Madeline Slettedahl, titled No Choice but Love: Songs of the LGBTQ+ Community. His performance in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Pagliacci won a 2022 Emmy Award. The 2022–2023 season included performances with Opéra de Rouen and debuts with the Opéra national de Paris as Lurcanio in Ariodante and the Opéra national du Rhin as Tamino. This season includes a return to Opéra de Rouen; debuts with Opéra de Lille, Haymarket Opera Company, and the Dubuque Symphony; and a world tour of Rodelinda with The English Concert and Harry Bicket.

American bass-baritone Brandon Cedel is a recent graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and he was an ensemble member of Oper Frankfurt from 2016 to 2019. Highlights of his 2023–2024 season include a return to the Metropolitan Opera as Dan Brown in a revival of Kevin Puts’s The Hours; a return to the Boston Lyric Opera as Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola; his debut for the Komische Oper Berlin in the title role of a new production of Hercules; his debut for Des Moines Metro Opera as Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande; and Garibaldo in an international concert tour of Rodelinda with The English Concert and Harry Bicket. Recent performances have included Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro at the Glyndebourne Festival, the title role in Hercules for the Karlsruhe Handel Festival, Dan Brown in the world premiere of Kevin Puts’s The Hours with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Zuniga in Carmen with Chicago Opera Theater.

In addition, Mr. Cedel has sung Masetto in Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Leporello in Don Giovanni and Argante in Rinaldo at the Glyndebourne Festival, Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia at Boston Lyric Opera, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro for Opera Philadelphia, and Colline in La bohème and Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Canadian Opera Company. His many roles for Oper Frankfurt include Masetto in Don Giovanni, the Speaker in Die Zauberflöte, Lieutenant Ratcliffe in Billy Budd, Argante in Rinaldo, Ariodante in Xerxes, Angelotti in Tosca, Brander in La damnation de Faust, and Achior in Betulia liberata. Upcoming engagements include returns to the Metropolitan Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival.