The Monteverdi Choir Biography
The Monteverdi Choir was founded in 1964 by Sir John Eliot Gardiner for a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers (1610) in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. A specialist Baroque ensemble, the Choir has become famous for its stylistic conviction and extensive repertoire, encompassing music from the early Baroque period to Classical music of the 20th century. They often appear with John Eliot Gardiner's orchestras, the English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. In 2000, the Choir, with the English Baroque Soloists, undertook an ambitious tour, the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, where it performed all of J.S. Bach's sacred cantatas in more than 60 churches in Europe, the UK and the US to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer's death. Recordings made during the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage are released in 27 volumes under Sir John Eliot Gardiner's own label, Soli Deo Gloria. Some of the cantatas, which had been recorded and released by Deutsche Grammophon on Archiv, will not be released again on the Soli Deo Gloria label. Others were excluded a priori from the pilgrimage, as their composition is not associated with religious calendar commitments.
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