‘The Academy of Ancient Music is in world-beating form once more’Gramophone, April 2007
‘The playing from the Academy of Ancient Music was ravishing’The Guardian, May 2007
The Academy of Ancient Music is one of the world’s first and foremost period-instrument orchestras. Concerts across six continents and over 250 recordings since its formation by Christopher Hogwood in 1973 demonstrate the AAM’s pre-eminence in music of the Baroque and Classical periods.
Richard Egarr succeeded Hogwood as Music Director in September 2006, and his inaugural season has won glowing praise from critics and audiences alike. In March 2007, Egarr’s first recording with the AAM — Handel’s Opus 3 sonatas — was released to universal acclaim, and in April he made his debut with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
Performances with Egarr in 2007–08 showcase the full scope of the AAM’s capabilities, from major choral works to Handel’s intimate Opus 1 sonatas, from Bach’s landmark Brandenburg Concertos to little-known masterpieces by Marini and Muffat. Highlights will include a three-week USA tour, the next four recordings in an ongoing series for Harmonia Mundi, and a European tour of Handel’s Messiah with the newly-formed Choir of the AAM.
The vitality of the AAM’s music-making continues to be fostered by a range of guest directors. This season, Hogwood — now Emeritus Director — conducts the second of his series of three Handel operas leading up to the composer’s anniversary in 2009, the renowned baroque expert Masaaki Suzuki and violinists Giuliano Carmignola and Pavlo Beznosiuk all lead projects, and the AAM continues to work with Polyphony and the Holst Singers and with the choirs of King’s College Cambridge and Trinity College Cambridge.
The orchestra’s pioneering recordings under Hogwood for Decca’s L’Oiseau-Lyre label cover much of the Baroque and Classical orchestral canon, from concertos and symphonies to opera and oratorio. This includes the first recordings on period instruments of many works, such as Mozart’s complete symphonies, and prize-winning opera recordings of Handel, Haydn and Mozart with soloists including Emma Kirkby, Cecilia Bartoli and Joan Sutherland.
In addition to the numerous Decca releases, further projects have resulted in recordings for EMI, Chandos, Erato and Harmonia Mundi. These include discs of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Purcell with the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Pergolesi, English coronation music and Handel’s Messiah with the Choir of New College Oxford, and several discs for Harmonia Mundi of music from Bach to Tavener under Goodwin, Egarr and Andrew Manze. The AAM’s recent releases include Baroque double concertos on Wigmore Hall Live and Handel Concerti Grossi Op.3 with Richard Egarr.
The AAM is Orchestra-in-Residence at the University of Cambridge.
Visit www.aam.co.uk for further details of the AAM’s activities worldwide.
Continue to the year-by-year account of the AAM’s history.