Around the Music Festival

John Eliot Gardiner, the Big name of the ancient music society, has caused a stir in the music world by waging a “battle without honor” against the Monteverdi Orchestra and Chorus, his old home. After being dismissed from his old post over a violent incident last year, he hastily created a new ensemble and chorus, and even went to the extreme of scheduling his own tour to coincide with the old home in Europe.

Gardiner’s new organization is called Springhead Connection, under which the Constellation Orchestra and Constellation Chorus have been organized. The Monteverdi Orchestra and Chorus will tour Europe this winter with Christophe Rousset in Gardiner’s place, and Gardiner will touring his new ensemble against them.

Among other things, in Hamburg, a concert by a new ensemble is rushed in on December 7, a week before the Monteverdi Orchestra and Choir concert scheduled for December 14. Moreover, the program is exactly the same, with works by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Bach, and the hall even allowed an exchange of tickets for those who wanted to hear Gardiner.

Gardiner studied music at Cambridge University, first founding the Monteverdi Choir in 1964. In 1968, he founded the Monteverdi Orchestra, which was reorganized into the English Baroque Soloists in 1978, and in 1989, he founded the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique to explore the repertoire of Romantic music, which he led as its founder and conductor.

However, he was dismissed from his old position this past July while under house arrest after an incident last August in which he beat a young tenor singer after a performance. Gardiner is also said to be drawing out old acquaintances to his new ensemble, and there is discouragement within the music industry over the 81-year-old great man’s behavior and blatant acts of harassment against the old home.

PHOTO：NPO Klassiek　/　Chris Lee