Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Encyclopedia
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra is an orchestra based in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, which is dedicated to historically informed performance of Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

, Classical and early Romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

 music on original instruments. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra was founded in 1981 by harpsichordist, teacher and early music pioneer, Laurette Goldberg (1932-2005). The ensemble added the PBO Chorale in 1995.

Nicholas McGegan
Nicholas McGegan
Nicholas McGegan OBE is a British harpsichordist, flautist, conductor and early music expert....

 has been Music Director of the Philharmonia Baroque since 1985. In addition, the Orchestra has welcomed eminent guest conductors to its podium including William Christie
William Christie (musician)
William Lincoln Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants....

, Andrew Parrott
Andrew Parrott
Andrew Parrott is a British conductor, perhaps best known for his pioneering historically informed performances of pre-classical music. He conducts a wide range of repertoire, including contemporary music. He conducted the premiere of Judith Weir's A Night at the Chinese Opera...

, Jordi Savall
Jordi Savall
Jordi Savall i Bernadet is a Catalan viol player, conductor and composer. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for bringing the viol back to life on the stage...

, Gustav Leonhardt
Gustav Leonhardt
Gustav Leonhardt is a highly renowned Dutch keyboard player, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. Leonhardt has been a leading figure in the movement to perform music on period instruments...

, Trevor Pinnock
Trevor Pinnock
Trevor David Pinnock CBE is an English conductor, harpsichordist, and occasional organist and pianist.He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and early classical...

, Monica Huggett
Monica Huggett
Monica Huggett is a British conductor and leading baroque violinist.-Biography:At the age of 16, Huggett started studying at the Royal Academy of Music, London, with Manoug Parikian and Kato Havas, baroque violin with Sigiswald Kuijken.She co-founded and served as leader of the Amsterdam Baroque...

 and Stanley Ritchie.

The Orchestra performs a seceon-concert subscription season in four cities in the San Francisco Bay Area -- San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

, and Atherton
Atherton, California
Atherton is an incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States. Its population was 6,914 at the 2010 census. In September 2010, Forbes magazine placed Atherton's zip code of 94027 at #2 on its annual list of America's most expensive zip codes, with a median home price of $4,010,200...

/Palo Alto
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...

 -- and is regularly heard on tour in United States and internationally. In 2005 the Orchestra debuted at the BBC Proms, Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings is part of Snape, Suffolk, U.K., best known for its concert hall, which is one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival....

 (UK) and the Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...

 in Amsterdam as part of its European tour. In August 2011, the Orchestra performed Handel’s opera Orlando at the Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, and Tanglewood festivals.

In 1990, Philharmonia began a successful collaboration with the Mark Morris Dance Group
Mark Morris
Mark William Morris is an American dancer, choreographer and director whose work is acclaimed for its craftsmanship, ingenuity, humor, and at times eclectic musical accompaniments...

. Joint productions have included Purcell's
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

 Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...

; Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...

's Gloria; Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; and Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...

's ballet-opera Platée.

Philharmonia has made a number of recordings for Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony"....

, Reference Recordings and BMG
BMG
Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann...

 and released a self-produced 2-CD set of music of Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...

on the Avie label. In 2011, the Orchestra launched its own CD label, Philharmonia Baroque Productions, and released three titles: a recording of Berlioz’ "Les Nuits d’été" and Handel arias featuring the late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; a collection of three Haydn symphonies; and a recording of Vivaldi’s "The Four Seasons" plus three other violin concertos. The Orchestra is also featured in a monthly live radio program on the second Sunday of each month on KDFC-FM in the Bay Area.

The Orchestra was named "Ensemble of the Year" for 2004 by Musical America.

External links

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