Jane Glover - Conductor
"The performance of the standard Süssmayr edition she delivered Friday
night ...... was anything but standard in its dramatic fervor and stylish
insights ...... Proper solemnity and weight of expression were achieved
without heaviness or sluggishness ...... Mozart's Symphony No. 29, which
opened the program, combined the rounded tonal quality of a modern orchestra
performance with the bracing lucidity and nimble articulations of a "period"
rendition. Glover managed to infuse this music with freshness and exuberance
without ever making it feel as if she were imposing herself on Mozart."
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune: 8th February 2010
Jane Glover is Music Director of Chicago's "Music of the Baroque"
and Artistic Director of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
She made her professional debut at the Wexford Festival in 1975 where she
conducted her edition of Cavalli's "Eritrea". She later joined
Glyndebourne Festival Opera where she was to become Music Director of Glyndebourne
Touring Opera from 1981 to 1985, and was Artistic Director of the London
Mozart Players from 1984 to 1991. In addition to her appearances in the
opera house and on concert platforms she is also renowned for her work in
choral repertoire and has been Music Director of both the London Choral
Society and the Huddersfield Choral Society. During the 2008-9 season she
conducts The Turn of the Screw (Bordeaux), Semele (Milwaukee), La Clemenza
di Tito (Chicago) and The Rape of Lucretia (Aspen) plus concerts with Music
of the Baroque (including Handel's Hercules), the London Mozart Players
(including several Mozart symphonies and Haydn's "Creation"),
the Orchestre Nationale de Bordeaux et Aquitaine and the Philharmonia Baroque
as well recording a series of Haydn Masses in New York. Her book, Mozart's
Women, received wide critical praise when published in September 2005 and
it was nominated for both the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Whitbread Prize
for Non-Fiction. She is currently writing a book on Handel.
Ms Glover's concert engagements take her all over the world. She has performed with all the major symphony and chamber orchestras in Britain, repeatedly at the BBC Proms (a highlight being Britten's War Requiem), as well as with orchestras throughout Europe, the US, Far East and Australasia, in programmes that champion contemporary composers like Jonathan Harvey, James Macmillan, Judith Weir, Olliver Knussen, Robin Holloway, Jonathan Dove, Judith Bingham, and David Matthews alongside core regular concert fare. In recent seasons she has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, Toronto Symphony, St Louis Symphony, Orchestra of St Luke's (Carnegie Hall), Philharmonia Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, London Mozart Players and City of London Sinfonia as well as period orchestras such as the Philharmonia Baroque plus the Handel & Haydn Society. She has appeared at the Mostly Mozart Festivals in both New York and London.
In continual demand at international opera houses, Ms Glover has appeared with numerous companies including the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, Berlin Staatsoper, English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Royal Danish Opera, Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Glimmerglass Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Australia, Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Acknowledged as a Mozart specialist, she has conducted all the Mozart operas regularly worldwide since her Glyndebourne days in the 1980's with some subsequent highlights including the Da Ponte trilogy in Chicago (directed by Diane Paulus), Die Entführung at the Royal Opera and Cosi fan tutte in Berlin. However, her core repertoire also includes Monteverdi (she and Paulus also performed his three operas in Chicago during 2000, 2003 and 2006), Handel (including Giulio Cesare, Alcina, Agrippina, Tamerlano, Acis and Galatea, Ariodante and Theodora), and Britten, who personally influenced and guided Jane Glover when she was 16, and to whose music she constantly returns. Her operatic repertoire also regularly includes Purcell, Gluck, Beethoven, Rossini, Donizetti, Humperdinck (she performed Hansel and Gretel at the BBC Proms) and Knussen.
In addition she collaborates closely with the Mark Morris Dance Group, for
whom she has conducted major productions of Purcell (King Arthur), Handel
(L'Allegro) and Mozart.
Jane Glover's many recordings include those made featuring Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Britten and Walton with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC Singers alongside several with the London Mozart Players in a series of Mozart and Haydn symphonies for ASV and Mozart arias with Felicity Lott. Her extensive broadcasting career includes the two television series, "Orchestra" and "Mozart", plus a pair of radio series, "Opera House" and "Musical Dynasties", for the BBC.
Jane Glover studied at the University of Oxford, where, after graduation, she did her D.Phil. on 17th-century Venetian opera. She holds honorary degrees from several other universities, is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music and holds a personal chair as a Professor of the University of London. She was created a CBE in the UK 2003 New Year's Honours.
February 2010