Harry Christophers is known internationally as founder and conductor of The Sixteen as well as a regular guest conductor for many of the major symphony orchestras and opera companies worldwide. He has directed The Sixteen choir and orchestra throughout Europe, America and the Far East gaining a distinguished reputation for his work in Renaissance, Baroque and 20th-century music. He has made a significant contribution to the recording catalogue (already comprising of around 100 titles) for which he has won numerous awards including a Grand Prix du Disque for his first recording of Handel’s Messiah, numerous Schallplattenkritik, the coveted Gramophone Award for ‘Early Music’ and the prestigious Classical Brit Award 2005 for his disc entitled Renaissance. His CD IKON was nominated for a 2007 Grammy and his second recording of Handel’s Messiah on The Sixteen’s own label CORO won the prestigious MIDEM Classical Award 2009. In 2009 he also received the coveted Gramophone Artist of the Year award as well as Best Baroque Vocal for Handel’s Coronation Anthems.
Harry Christophers has been Artistic Director of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society since 2009 and it was recently announced that he will continue in this role until at least 2015. He is Principal Guest Conductor of both the Granada Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid. Harry Christophers also enjoys a very special partnership with the BBC Philharmonic including a disc of American-inspired works by Ives, Stravinsky, Poulenc and Tippett which won a Diapason d’Or. He is a regular guest conductor with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields who have all benefited from his dynamic brand of programming. Within the last few years he has also conducted the Hallé, the London Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony, with whom he returned in Spring 2008.
Increasingly busy in opera, he began a Monteverdi cycle in 1998, in new productions for Lisbon Opera House, with Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, following his success there with Gluck’s Orfeo. In 2000 he conducted Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for Lisbon Opera as well as Purcell’s King Arthur and Rameau’s Platée and made an acclaimed début with English National Opera, conducting Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea. He has since conducted productions of Gluck’s Orfeo and Handel’s Ariodante at ENO as well as the UK première of Messager’s Fortunio for Grange Park Opera. In 2006, Mozart’s anniversary year, he conducted Mozart’s Mitridate for the Granada Festival and after the outstanding success of Handel’s Semele and Hercules and Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba at Buxton Opera in past seasons, he returned in 2011 to conduct a powerful production of Handel’s Saul.
Harry Christophers is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford as well as the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and has an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Leicester.