Handel and Haydn Society Holds 2012 Annual Meeting

Related: Handel and Haydn Society, H&H

Nicholas Gleysteen was re-elected Chairman of the Board by the Board of Governors and Overseers. Gleysteen, a lawyer and CPA, is a Portfolio Manager at Hellman, Jordan Management Co., and also serves on the boards of the Weston Land Trust, Somerset Club Executive Committee, Fort Ticonderoga, National Trust for Scotland USA, Handel House USA, and the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club.

Judith Verhave, Overseer, of Bank of New York Mellon, was elected to the Board of Governors. Elected to the Board of Overseers was John Cornish of Financial Diligence Networks, LLC. Also elected during the FY12 fiscal year were Robin Riggs, Chief Creative Officer at LW Robbins and Nancy Tooke, Vice President at Eaton Vance Investment Managers to the Board of Governors; Sylvia Ferrell-Jones, President and CEO of YWCA Boston, was elected to the Board of Overseers. All will serve three-year terms.

In addition to Nicholas Gleysteen as Board Chair, officers were elected for the coming year. Vice Chairs will be Todd Estabrook of Commonwealth Financial; Deborah First of Deborah First Communications; Mary Nada, philanthropist; Julia Cox, financial consultant; Karen Levy, education specialist; Michael Scott Morton of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Wat Tyler, philanthropist. Jeff Thomas, Chief Investment Officer of Atlantic Trust Pell Rudman, was elected Treasurer; Winifred Li of Ropes & Gray LLP elected Secretary; and Marie-Hélène Bernard as Chief Executive Officer.

Harry Christophers enters his fourth season as Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society with the 2012–2013 Season. Appointed in 2008, he began his tenure with the 2009–2010 Season and has conducted Handel and Haydn each season since September 2006, when he led a sold-out performance in the Esterházy Palace at the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria. Christophers and H&H have since embarked on an ambitious artistic journey that began with the 2010–2011 Season with a showcase of works premiered in the United States by the Handel and Haydn Society over the last 195 years, and the release of the first of a series of recordings on CORO leading to the 2015 Bicentennial. Christophers is known internationally as founder and conductor of the UK-based choir and period instrument ensemble The Sixteen. He has directed The Sixteen throughout Europe, America, and the Far East, gaining a distinguished reputation for his work in Renaissance, Baroque, and 20th century music. In 2000, he instituted the "Choral Pilgrimage," a tour of British cathedrals from York to Canterbury. He has recorded close to 100 titles for which he has won numerous awards, including a Grand Prix du Disque for Handel Messiah, numerous Preise der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics Awards), the coveted Gramophone Award for Early Music, and the prestigious Classical Brit Award (2005) for his disc entitled Renaissance. In 2009 he received one of classical music's highest accolades, the Classic FM Gramophone Awards Artist of the Year Award; The Sixteen also won the Baroque Vocal Award for Handel Coronation Anthems, a CD that also received a 2010 Grammy Award nomination. Harry Christophers is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Granada Symphony Orchestra and a regular guest conductor with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. In October 2008, Christophers was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Leicester. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford and also of the Royal Welsh Academy for Music and Drama and was awarded a CBE in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Handel and Haydn Society (H&H) is a professional Period Instrument Orchestra and Chorus and an internationally recognized leader in the field of Historically Informed Performance, a revelatory style that uses the instruments and techniques of the composer's time. Founded in Boston in 1815, H&H is considered the oldest continuously performing arts organization in the United States and has a longstanding commitment to excellence and innovation: it gave the American premieres of Handel's Messiah (1818), Haydn's The Creation (1819), Verdi's Requiem (1878), and Bach's St. Matthew Passion (1879). Handel and Haydn today, under Artistic Director Harry Christophers' leadership, is committed to its mission to perform Baroque and Classical music at the highest levels of artistic excellence and to share that music with as large and diverse an audience as possible. H&H is widely known through its local subscription series, tours, concert broadcasts on WGBH/99.5 Classical New England and National Public Radio, and recordings. Its recording of Sir John Tavener's Lamentations and Praises won a 2003 Grammy Award and two of its recordings, All is Bright and Peace, appeared simultaneously in the top ten on Billboard Magazine's classical music chart. In September 2010, H&H released its first collaboration with Harry Christophers on the CORO label, Mozart Mass in C Minor-the first in a series of live commercial recordings leading to H&H's Bicentennial in 2015. The 2010–2011 Season marked the 25th anniversary of Handel and Haydn's award-winning Karen S. and George D. Levy Educational Outreach Program, which brings music education, vocal training, and performance opportunities to 10,000 students annually throughout Greater Boston and beyond.

Handel and Haydn Society is funded in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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