HARRY CHRISTOPHERS
The 2011–2012 Season is Harry Christophers’ third as Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society. Since September 2006, when he led a sold-out performance in the Esterházy Palace at the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, he has conducted Handel and Haydn each season and, following his appointment in 2008, Christophers’ tenure as Artistic Director began with the 2009–2010 season. Christophers and Handel and Haydn have since embarked on an ambitious artistic journey with a showcase of works premiered in the United States by the Handel and Haydn Society over the last 197 years, and the release of the first of a series of recordings on CORO leading to the 2015 Bicentennial. Christophers is 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 Sixteen’s “Choral Pilgrimage,” a tour of British cathedrals from York to Canterbury. With that ensemble, 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, and The Sixteen 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 and the Orquestra de la Comunidad de Madrid. In October 2008, Christophers was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Leicester. Most recently, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford and also of the Royal Welsh Academy for Music and Drama.

ROSEMARY JOSHUA
Soprano Rosemary Joshua makes her Handel and Haydn Society debut in Mozart Coronation. Joshua was born in Cardiff and studied at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a Fellow.

Her recent operatic appearances include Adèle (Die Fledermaus) at The Metropolitan Opera; Vixen (The Cunning Little Vixen) and Tytania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) at La Scala, Milan; Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress) at the Royal Opera House, the Glyndebourne Festival, and La Monnaie, Brussels; Oscar (Un ballo in maschera) and Vixen at the Netherlands Opera; and Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Glyndebourne Festival, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Welsh National Opera, and in Cologne.

Since making her debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival as Angelica (Orlando), it is above all as a Handel singer that Joshua has built her international reputation. She has sung Ginevra (Ariodante) in San Diego; Angelica in Munich and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Poppea (Agrippina) in Cologne, Brussels, and Paris; Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) in Paris, Amsterdam, and Florida; and the title role in Semele to great critical acclaim at the Aix-en-Provence and Innsbruck Festivals, Flanders Opera, Cologne Opera, the BBC Proms, and the English National Opera (for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in the Outstanding Achievement in Opera category). Her plans include Despina (Così fan tutte) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Nitocris (Belshazzar) in Toulouse; and Vixen at the Netherlands Opera. Recent concert appearances include the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Opera, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic.

Recordings include the title roles in Handel’s Partenope and Semele and Emilia in Flavio with Christian Curnyn for Chandos; the title role in Handel’s Esther for Somm; Angelica in Orlando with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie for Erato; Saul, Venus and Adonis, and Dido and Aeneas with René Jacobs for Harmonia Mundi; and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées with Philippe Herreweghe for Outhere Music.

PAULA MURRIHY
Irish mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy returns to the Handel and Haydn Society after last appearing in Handel’s Messiah in 2008. Murrihy has appeared at London’s Royal Opera House, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Oper Frankfurt, Opera de Nice, Chicago Opera Theater, Wexford Festival Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and Opera Boston in a range of roles including the title role in Handel’s Ariodante, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Annio in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, 2nd Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Cherubino in Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, Tebaldo in Verdi’s Don Carlo, Helene in Chabrier’s Une éducation manquée, and Ino in Handel’s Semele. She returned to the Royal Opera in 2010 as Mercedes in Carmen and recently joined Oper Frankfurt as a member of their ensemble, where her roles have included Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Medoro in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Baba in Stravinsky’s The Rake's Progress, and Scipio in Glanert’s Caligula. Plans this season in Frankfurt include L'etoile and Les Contes d'Hoffmann, and she makes her debut at Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse as Annio in La Clemenza di Tito.

Murrihy recently performed Messiah with Huddersfield Choral Society, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Utah Symphony, Haydn’s Harmoniemesse with the Gabrieli Consort, and Haydn’s Paukenmesse at Tanglewood and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, both with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She was alto soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor at the 2011 Annual Cartagena International Music Festival, Colombia. An accomplished recitalist, she has performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, UK; New York Festival of Song; Wexford Festival; and with the Irish Chamber Orchestra in the Shannon International Music Festival. She was also invited to participate in the Marilyn Horne Foundation Masterclass Series at Carnegie Hall, New York. In January 2012, she was the soloist in the world premiere of John Harbison’s Symphony No. 6 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Murrihy has been a Young Artist at the Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Utah Opera, Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera, and Tanglewood Music Center. She holds a Master’s of Music from the New England Conservatory, where she was a recipient of the John Moriarty Presidential Scholarship and a Presser Award. She received her Bachelor’s of Music Performance from the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, Dublin, Ireland.

THOMAS COOLEY
American tenor Thomas Cooley returns to the Handel and Haydn Society in Mozart Coronation after most recently performing in Mozart Mass in C Minor during the 2009–2010 Season. Cooley is establishing a worldwide reputation as a singer of versatility, expressiveness, and virtuosity. Equally at home on the concert stage and in the opera house, his repertoire ranges across more than four centuries.

Season highlights in 2010–11 include Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Rizzi), Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Atlanta Symphony (Runnicles) and Cathedral Choral Society, Berlioz’ Requiem at Carnegie Hall (Spano), Haydn’s The Creation with the Indianapolis Symphony (Boyd) and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (McGegan), Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Köln and Saarbrucken, Mozart’s Requiem (Christophers) and Honneger’s Le roi David (Shoenandt) in Amsterdam, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Alabama Symphony (Brown), the title role in Handel’s Jephtha and Saint-Saëns’ Requiem (Tritle) in New York, and Handel’s Messiah with the Minnesota Orchestra (Vanska) and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Polochik).

Recent recital highlights include performances of works by Monteverdi and Schütz (Berkeley); Britten (Britten Festival, Aldeburgh); Haydn and Beethoven (Göttingen); and Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with pianist Donald Sulzen. Cooley lived in Munich for ten years, four as a member of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, singing featured roles in operas by Mozart and Rossini. Cooley’s recent recordings include Handel Samson (Göttingen Handel Festival Orchestra/McGegan, Carus); Vivaldi Dixit Dominus (Deutsche Grammophon); Mozart Requiem (Windsbacher Knabenchor, Sony) and Mozart Mass in C Minor (Handel and Haydn Society/Christophers, CORO).

SUMNER THOMPSON
American bass Sumner Thompson returns to the Handel and Haydn Society after last performing in The Bach Experience in 2011. Described as possessing “power and passion” and “stylish elegance,” Thompson is in demand on concert and opera stages across North America and Europe.
He has appeared as a soloist with many leading ensembles, including the Britten-Pears Orchestra, the National Symphony, the Boston Early Music Festival, Apollo’s Fire, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Les Boréades de Montréal, Mercury Baroque, Les Voix Baroques, Boston Baroque, and Tafelmusik.

Upcoming engagements include Handel’s Messiah with the Handel and Haydn Society in December 2012, Bach’s St. John Passion with Orchestra Iowa and with Switzerland’s Gli Angeli Genève, a return to Early Music Vancouver’s summer festival with Les Voix Baroques, and Messiah with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Thompson can be heard on the Boston Early Music Festival’s Grammy-nominated recording of Lully’s Psyché on the CPO label, and also with Les Voix Baroques on Canticum Canticorum, Carissimi Oratorios, and Humori, all on the ATMA label.

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 and The Boston Conservatory.