HARRY CHRISTOPHERS
Harry Christophers 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, ambitious education programming and community outreach activities and partnerships and the release of the first of a series of recordings on CORO 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.

KARINA GAUVIN
Soprano Karina Gauvin last performed with the Handel and Haydn Society in Haydn’s The Seasons at Royal Albert Hall in London in 2007. Gauvin has impressed audiences and critics the world over with her luscious timbre, profound musicality and wide vocal range. Her repertoire ranges from the music of Johann Sebastian Bach to Luciano Berio and she has sung with many major orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Musica Antiqua Köln, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and Les Violons du Roy.

Among her many career highlights figure Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s Magnificat with the Chicago Symphony under Helmuth Rilling, and her Carnegie Hall debut in Bach’s B minor Mass under the baton of Peter Schreier. She also was Iole in Handel’s Hercules with Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, Euridice in Gluck’s Orphée with Les Violons du Roy and Alcina in Handel’s eponymous opera with the Gabrieli Consort at the Beaune Festival in France.

A prolific recording artist with nineteen releases to her credit, Karina Gauvin has won the Juno award for recordings of Handel’s Silete Venti/Apollo e Daphne and Mozart’s Requiem with Les Violons du Roy. Among her other impressive projects are debut recordings with Deutsche Grammophon of Handel’s operas Tolomeo, Alcina, Ezio, and Agrippina with Alan Curtis and Complesso Barocco.

Gauvin won First Prize at the CBC Young Performers Competition and received the Lieder and Public’s prize at the s’Hertogenbosch International Vocal Competition in the Netherlands. In 2000 she was honored with the Opus Award as “Performer of the Year.” A graduate of the Montreal Conservatory of Music, Gauvin studied with Marie Daveluy and pursued her postgraduate study with Pamela Bowden at the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow.

DANIEL TAYLOR
Countertenor Daniel Taylor last performed with the Handel and Haydn Society in Handel’s Messiah in 2009. An exclusive recording artist for Sony Classical Masterworks, Taylor is one of the most sought-after countertenors in the world and recognized as Canada's finest. He appears on more than 100 recordings on Sony, DG Archiv, Decca, Harmonia Mundi, BIS, Analekta, Teldec, Erato and Universal. Taylor has performed with the New York Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne, Rome Opera, San Francisco Opera, Welsh National Opera, Montreal Opera, Canadian Opera, at the Edinburgh Festival and at the Royal Albert Hall/BBC Proms. He recently took a role in the world premiere of the Robert Lepage staging of Ades The Tempest. He works with the Tonhalle Zurich, Toronto, Gothenburg, Rotterdam, St. Louis, and Cleveland Orchestras. In recital, he has sung at the Wigmore Hall, in Beijing, Barcelona, and across North America. He sang on Parliament Hill for Queen Elizabeth and the Prime Minister of Canada.

Taylor is a Professor of Voice and Head of Early Music at the University of Toronto, Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa and Artist in Residence at the Opéra de Montréal. He is Artistic Director and Conductor of the Choir and Orchestra of the Theatre of Early Music. The Theatre of Early Music performs more than 30 concerts every year in concert halls all over the world. He is also Artistic Director of the Quebec International Festival of Sacred Music.

JAMES GILCHRIST
Tenor James Gilchrist last performed with the Handel and Haydn Society in Haydn’s The Seasons at Symphony Hall in 2007. Gilchrist began his working life as a doctor, turning to a full-time career in music in 1996. Recent highlights include St Matthew Passion (Rotterdam Philharmonic), and Die Jahreszeiten (Royal Flemish Phil), Britten Les Illuminations at Aldeburgh festival, La Finta Giardiniera (AAM), and Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (Amsterdam Sinfonietta). James also works regularly with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, the Sixteen, and the King’s Consort.

Gilchrist’s operatic roles include Quint in Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte, Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love(Barbican/Radio 3), and Purcell’s King Arthur for Mark Morris at English National Opera.

A prolific recitalist, Gilchrist enjoys successful relationships with accompanists Anna Tilbrook, Julius Drake, and the harpist Alison Nicholls. His many critically acclaimed recordings include Die Schöne Mullerin, Schwanengesang and Winterreise for Orchid, Handel Jephtha with Fabio Biondi (BIS), Intimations of Immortality for Naxos, title role Albert Herring and Vaughan William’s A Poisoned Kiss for Chandos, Leighton Earth, Sweet Earth, On Wenlock Edge, Britten’s Winter Words and My Beloved is Mine – Britten Song Cycles (Linn).

Forthcoming engagements include performances of Messiah with the Sixteen and with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra. He will tour Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, and will sing Madwoman (Curlew River), Nebuchadnezzar (The Burning Fiery Furnace) and Tempter/Abbot (The Prodigal Son) in Britten’s Church Parables, with performances in St Petersburg, London, and at the Aldeburgh Festival.

SUMNER THOMPSON
Baritone Sumner Thompson last performed with the Handel and Haydn Society in Mozart Coronation Mass in April 2012. 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 Boreades de Montreal, Mercury Baroque, Les Voix Baroques, The Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and Tafelmusik.

Recent engagements included Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Handel’s Messiah with the Handel and Haydn Society, Bach’s St. John Passionwith Orchestra Iowa and with Switzerland’s gliangeli baroque, Britten’s War Requiem with the New England Philharmonic, a return to Early Music Vancouver’s summer festival with Les Voix Baroques, Messiah with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers with the critically acclaimed Green Mountain Project. 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.

The Karen S. and George D. Levy Educational Outreach Program
Established in 1985, the Handel and Haydn Society’s Karen S. and George D. Levy Educational Outreach Program was created with strong ties to the organization’s early leaders. Lowell Mason, best known as the founding father of music education in American public schools, enjoyed a long association with Handel and Haydn, first as musical editor and later as President of H&H from 1827–1832. Mason taught classes at the Bowdoin Street Church and founded the Boston Academy of Music in 1833 to promote music education to the public. When H&H launched its official educational initiative in 1985, it focused on public education with its free school visits that now reach public schools in nine Massachusetts districts; the Collaborative Youth Concerts followed in 1987, in which students from different school districts and cultural backgrounds come together to perform for their communities alongside Handel and Haydn musicians. Collaborative Youth Concerts celebrate their 25th Anniversary in 2012, and honor a rich history of providing students with a sense of achievement and musical ownership in ways that traditional youth concerts cannot.

In 1994, H&H started the Vocal Apprenticeship Program (VAP) with Youth Chorus (grades 6–8) and the High School Soloists pre-professional program, held at New England Conservatory. Later, VAP reached younger students with Singers (grades 3–5) and high school students with its Young Men’s (grades 8–12) and Young Women’s (grades 9–12) Choruses, so that students could grow with the program for several years, increasing their individual sense of accomplishment as they passed through each level. Students enrolled in VAP learn music theory and receive performance opportunities throughout each season. VAP classes take place in the state-of-the-art music division wing of the Boston Latin School, located in one of the most culturally accessible neighborhoods of Boston, next to Massachusetts College of Art; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The Handel and Haydn Society is the only professional music organization in Massachusetts serving as a parent to its own youth ensemble program and regularly presenting them in conjunction with its professional series at Symphony Hall. VAP is also the only youth ensemble program in New England to include individualized scholarships for vocal instruction, diction, and other classes for potential music majors in collaboration with New England Conservatory.