HARRY CHRISTOPHERS
Harry Christophers, CBE, enters his fourth season as Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society with the 2012–2013 Season. Appointed in 2008, he began his tenure with the 2009–2010 Season and has conducted Handel and Haydn each season since September 2006, when he led a sold-out performance in the Esterházy Palace at the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria. Christophers and H&H have since embarked on an ambitious artistic journey towards H&H’s 2015 Bicentennial with a showcase of works premiered in the United States by the Handel and Haydn Society since 1815, education programming, community outreach activities and partnerships, and the release of the first of a series of recordings on the CORO label leading to the Bicentennial. Christophers is known internationally as founder and conductor of the UK-based choir and period instrument ensemble The Sixteen. He has directed The Sixteen throughout Europe, America, and the Far East, gaining a distinguished reputation for his work in Renaissance, Baroque, and 20th century music. In 2000, he instituted the “Choral Pilgrimage,” a tour of British cathedrals from York to Canterbury. He has recorded close to 100 titles for which he has won numerous awards, including a Grand Prix du Disque for Handel Messiah, numerous Preise der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics Awards), the coveted Gramophone Award for Early Music, and the prestigious Classical Brit Award (2005) for his disc entitled Renaissance. In 2009 he received one of classical music’s highest accolades, the Classic FM Gramophone Awards Artist of the Year Award; The Sixteen also won the Baroque Vocal Award for Handel Coronation Anthems, a CD that also received a 2010 Grammy Award nomination. Harry Christophers is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Granada Symphony Orchestra and a regular guest conductor with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. In October 2008, Christophers was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Leicester. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford and also of the Royal Welsh Academy for Music and Drama and was awarded a CBE in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

JONATHAN BEST
Jonathan Best makes his Handel and Haydn Society debut with Purcell The Indian Queen. Best studied at St John’s College‚ Cambridge, and the Guildhall School of Music, London. Most recent and future engagements include Sarastro, The Magic Flute, and Le Bailli, Werther (Scottish Opera); Judge, Sweeney Todd (Châtelet, Paris, and Munich Rundfunkorchester); title role, Saul‚ Zebul, Jephtha, and Notary, Intermezzo (Buxton Festival, UK); Lord Henry, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Norway), Saul with the Sixteen; Quince, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Speaker, The Magic Flute (Garsington, UK), The Portrait and Achilla, Giulio Cesare (Opera North); Pastor Oberlin, Jakob Lenz and Bartolo (English National Opera); The Adventures of Mr. Broucek (ON and Scottish Opera); Arthur, The Lighthouse‚ The Soldier’s Tale, and the world premiere of The Sins (Psappha).

Regular engagements abroad include appearances in Strasbourg, Barcelona, the Salzburg Festival‚ Maggio Musicale-Florence, la Monnaie, Netherlands Opera, and Brooklyn Academy of Music‚ New York.

Best appears regularly in concert throughout the UK and abroad and has made many recordings for television and radio. Appearances include Uberto, La Serva Padrona (Gabrieli Consort); Mozart’s Requiem (Harrogate and Cork); Verdi’s Requiem and Christus, St. John Passion (Bach Choir); Jesus, St. Matthew Passion (Sheffield); and L’enfance du Christ with BOCO.

ZACHARY WILDER
Zachary Wilder makes his Handel and Haydn Society debut with Purcell The Indian Queen. Described as possessing a “remarkably clear, flexible lyric tenor,” and a “radiant tone,” Wilder is a much sought-after performer on both the operatic and concert stage. He has performed with numerous groups across the United States, including Apollo’s Fire, Ars Lyrica Houston, Back Bay Chorale, Boston Early Music Festival, Camerata Ventepane, Emmanuel Music, Harvard Baroque Orchestra, Houston Bach Society, Mark Morris Dance Group, Mercury Baroque, Pacific Musicworks, Portland Baroque Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, and Seraphic Fire. He recently made his European debut with Mercury Baroque as Renaud in Lully’s Armide at the Théâtre de Gennevilliers. He returned to France in summer 2011 to perform as Coridon in Handel’s Acis and Galatea at Festival D’Aix en Provence and again at La Fenice in Venice in fall. He was named a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow at Emmanuel Music, a former Gerdine Young Artist at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, as well as a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow. He can be heard on Boston Early Music Festival's Grammy-nominated recording of Lully's Psyché, as well as their recordings of Charpentier's Actéon and John Blow's Venus and Adonis on the CPO label. He will be joining the cast of Le Jardin des Voix in an international tour with William Christie in 2013.

TERESA NEFF
Teresa Neff received her PhD in Musicology from Boston University. Her research interests center around Gottfried van Swieten, a late 18th-century Viennese patron and composer. Artaria will publish Neff’s edition of Swieten’s symphonies later this year. She has presented papers at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the New England Chapter of the American Musicological Society, and the Architecture/Music/Acoustics Conference. She presents concert preview lectures for Elderhostel and Boston Lyric Opera, and also teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.