Nicholas McGegan
Encyclopedia
Nicholas McGegan OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born 14 January 1950 in Sawbridgeworth
Sawbridgeworth
Sawbridgeworth is a small, mainly residential, town and also a civil parish in Hertfordshire, England.- Location :Sawbridgeworth is four miles south of Bishop's Stortford, twelve miles east of Hertford and nine miles north of Epping. It lies on the A1184 and has a railway station that links to...

, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

) is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 harpsichordist, flautist, conductor and early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...

 expert.

McGegan received his early education at Nottingham High School
Nottingham High School
Nottingham High School is a British boys' independent school situated about a mile north of Nottingham city centre. It has around 900 pupils from ages 11 to 18 and there is the adjoining Nottingham High Junior School catering for younger boys and, from September 2008, the Lovell House...

. He subsequently studied music at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...

 and at Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

. McGegan has participated in some of the earliest authentic-performance recordings during the 1970s as a baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 flautist
Flautist
A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...

, including Christopher Hogwood
Christopher Hogwood
Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood CBE, MA , HonMusD , born 10 September 1941, Nottingham, is an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer and musicologist, well known as the founder of the Academy of Ancient Music.-Biography:...

's seminal recordings of Mozart symphonies. He has taught music at such UK institutions as King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

, Oriel College, Oxford, and the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

. In the USA, McGegan has served as artist-in-residence at Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations...

.

In 1985, McGegan became music director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra is an orchestra based in San Francisco, which is dedicated to historically informed performance of Baroque, Classical and early Romantic music on original instruments. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra was founded in 1981 by harpsichordist, teacher and early music...

 (PBO) in San Francisco, USA. From 1991 to 2011, McGegan was artistic director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival. He has also held long-term appointments with the Drottningholm Theatre, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its primary performing venue is the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts...

 and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra , based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is the United States' only full-time professional chamber orchestra...

. McGegan founded the chamber music group, The Arcadian Academy. He was music director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra
Irish Chamber Orchestra
The Irish Chamber Orchestra is a Irish classical music ensemble, administratively based at the University of Limerick. The ICO primarily gives concerts at the University Concert Hall, Limerick and at the RDS Concert Hall, Dublin...

 from 2002 to 2005.

McGegan has made more than 100 recordings, including many with the PBO and singers such as Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was an American mezzo-soprano, known for the dramatic power of her vocal artistry as well as her commitment to performing infrequently-heard Baroque era and contemporary works...

 and Lisa Saffer, for such labels as harmonia mundi. He has collected a number of honors, including an honorary degree from the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

 in London, the Handel Music Prize
Handel Music Prize
The Handel Music Prize, in German Händel-Preis, is an annual award presented by the city of Halle, in Germany, in honour of the celebrated Baroque composer George Frideric Handel. It is awarded “for exceptional artistic, academic or politico-cultural services as far as these are connected with the...

 from the Handel Festival
Handel Festival, Halle
The Handel Festival in Halle is an international music festival, concentrating on the music of George Frideric Handel, in the composer's birthplace in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. The festival was founded in 1922 and grew into a center of Handel studies and performance in Europe...

 in Halle, Germany
Halle, Germany
Halle, Germany may refer to:* Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, also called Halle an der Saale, or Halle * Halle, North Rhine-Westphalia, also called Halle in Westfalen, or Halle * Halle, Bentheim, in the district of Bentheim, Lower Saxony...

, and the honorary medal of the Friends of the Drottningholm Theatre.

McGegan resides in San Francisco and Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.

External links

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