Handel’s Orlando

Conductor

Gary studied at Chetham's School of Music, the John Loosemore Centre & at New College, Oxford. He is now established as one of the foremost ambassadors of the harpsichord and fortepiano - in particular, as an interpreter of Bach’s & Mozart’s keyboard music. Since making his solo Wigmore Hall debut in 2000, performing the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, he has since given performances of both the WTC, and the Goldberg Variations, at venues throughout Europe, N. America & Asia. Gary has made countless recordings, for radio, TV & on disc, including an award-winning CD of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book I, which was chosen as Sunday Times Classical Record of the Year, 2000. He is also an established conductor, having worked with many ensembles – most recently with the Mozart Festival Orchestra, performing Mozart Piano Concertos, and with English Touring Opera, conducting Handel’s Alcina, both on tour around the UK. During the forthcoming season he will be conducting Handel's Orlando at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, and the new Belgian period instrument ensemble, B’Rock, in Germany & the Low Countries. His duo partnership with baroque violinist Rachel Podger has taken them worldwide in concert, and includes a universally acclaimed venture to record the complete Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin by Mozart, four volumes of which are already recorded.

Also during 2006/7 - in addition to worldwide concerts with Rachel, and fortepiano recitals throughout the UK, in Holland & Austria - he will be recording Mozart's Variations on a Viennese piano c.1785 (Channel Classics), releasing a disc Mozart’s works for organ (Signum), as well as performing Mozart's complete Piano Sonatas in concert, and Beethoven’s Emperor Piano Concerto at London’s Barbican Concert Hall. Gary will soon be commencing a project to perform all of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas; in addition, he will also be setting up a new piano trio using period instruments, as well as conducting the period instrument ensemble Arion in Montreal, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Irish Baroque Orchestra in Dublin, an opera at next year’s Potsdam Festival & Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Seraglio for English Touring Opera. Gary also teaches harpsichord & fortepiano at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, and at York University.

Gary was named “Best Newcomer in Classical Music, 2001” in the Times. He has been dubbed “a rising star in early music” (Observer), “something of a genius” (Times), and the Sunday Times recently declared of his solo playing, “music-making rarely comes as impressive as this”.