In their debut European tour, The Constellation Choir & Orchestra appear at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wiener Konzerthaus, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Konzerthaus Dortmund, and Château de Versailles. Gardiner announced that the groups will produce 'ambitious, multidisciplinary performance projects that tour around the world. Our aspiration is to create accessible, engaging and educational performances that resonate across all generations and geographies.' Springhead Constellation’s exciting programme for 2025/26 includes tours in the next summer and autumn as well as ambitious plans for future seasons.
The breadth of Gardiner's repertoire is illustrated in the extensive catalogue of award-winning recordings with his own ensembles and leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic on major labels (including Decca, Philips, Erato, and more than 30 recordings for Deutsche Grammophon), as wide-ranging as Mozart, Schumann, Berlioz, Elgar, and Kurt Weill, in addition to works by Renaissance and Baroque composers. With the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, Gardiner has recorded on the label, Soli Deo Gloria, all the live recordings made during his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, for which he received Gramophone's 2011 Special Achievement Award and a Diapason d'or de l'année 2012. His many recording accolades include two GRAMMY awards, and he has received more Gramophone Awards than any other living artist.
Gardiner has performed regularly at the world's major venues and festivals, including Salzburg, Berlin and Lucerne festivals, Carnegie Hall, and the Royal Albert Hall; in 2022, Gardiner made his 61st appearance at the BBC Proms conducting Beethoven’s supreme spiritual testament Missa Solemnis. In 2017, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras celebrated the 450th anniversary of the birth of Monteverdi, for which they were awarded the RPS Music Award and Gardiner named Conductor of the Year at the Opernwelt Awards. Gardiner has conducted opera productions at the Wiener Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Opéra national de Paris, Royal Opera House, and most recently at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2021 with Verdi’s Falstaff. From 1983 to 1988 he was artistic director of Opéra de Lyon, where he founded its new orchestra.
Sir John Eliot Gardiner is also an acknowledged writer; his book, Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, was published in October 2013 by Allen Lane, leading critical acclaim and to the Prix des Muses award (Singer-Polignac). From 2014 to 2017 Gardiner was the first ever President of the Bach Archiv Leipzig. Among numerous awards in recognition of his work, Sir John Eliot Gardiner holds honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, the universities of Lyon, Cremona, St Andrews and King’s College, Cambridge where he himself studied and is now an Honorary Fellow; he is also an Honorary Fellow of King's College, London and the British Academy, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, who awarded him their prestigious Bach Prize in 2008; he became the inaugural Christoph Wolff Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in 2014/15 and was awarded the Concertgebouw Prize in January 2016. Gardiner was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2011 and was given the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2005. In the UK, he was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1990 and awarded a knighthood for his services to music in Elizabeth II's 1998 Birthday Honours List.
2024/25 Season / 699 words. Not to be altered without permission.