Artistic Advisors

Ellen T. Harris

B.A. ’67 Brown University; M.A. ’70, Ph.D. ’76 University of Chicago, Class of 1949 Professor Emeritus at MIT is a musicologist whose work focuses on Handel, Baroque opera, and vocal performance practice. She is a regular Visiting Professor at The Juilliard School. Her most recent book, George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends (W. W. Norton, 2014) won the Nicolas Sloniimsky Award for Outstanding Musical Biography (ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award) in 2015. Her previous book, Handel as Orpheus: Voice and Desire in the Chamber Cantatas (Harvard University Press, 2001) received the 2002 Otto Kindeldey Award from the American Musicological Society and the 2002-03 Louis Gottschalk Prize from the Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Her earlier publications include an edition of cantatas for alto voice (Oxford University Press, 2001), a critical facsimile edition of Handel’s opera librettos (13 vols.: Garland, 1989), Henry Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’ (Oxford, 1987), an edition (with Edward Dent) of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Oxford, 1987), and Handel and the Pastoral Tradition (Oxford, 1980). Her most recent work has focused on Handel’s finances, and she is currently writing a book on the performance of Handel’s operas.

Articles and reviews by Professor Harris have appeared in numerous publications including Journal of the American Musicological Society, Händel Jahrbuch, Notes, and The New York Times. Her article “Handel the Investor” (Music & Letters, 2004) received the 2004 Westrup Prize.

She has enjoyed residencies at the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College at Harvard University (1995-96) and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey (2004). She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998) and named an Honorary Member of the American Musicological Society (2011). For the 2013-14 academic year, she was chosen as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar and in 2005 won the Gyorgy Kepes Prize for her contributions to the arts at MIT. Professor Harris also has performed as a soprano soloist; she sang the National Anthem at Fenway Park in 1991 and in 1997 appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops, John Williams conducting.

Peter Holman, MBE

Emeritus Professor of Historical Musicology at the University of Leeds, has wide interests in English music from about 1550 to 1850, the history of instruments and instrumental music, and the early stages of the early music movement. His books include the prize-winning Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540-1690 (1993), Henry Purcell (1994), a study of John Dowland’s Lachrimae (1999), and Life after Death: The Viola da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch (2010). Before the Baton: Musical Direction and Conducting in Stuart and Georgian Britain was published in 2020. At present, among other things, he is working on The Purcell Compendium with Bryan White; a volume of Restoration Theatre Airs for Musica Britannica with Andrew Woolley; and a new edition of Purcell Society, vol. 31, now entitled Consort Music, with Robert Thompson. As a performer he was Director of The Parley of Instruments and Musical Director of Opera Restor’d, and he now directs the Suffolk Villages Festival and Leeds Baroque.

Key Positions:

Director of the Suffolk Villages Festival

Musical Director of Leeds Baroque

Board Member of Cambridge Handel Opera

Trustee and Editorial Committee member of Musica Britannica

Editorial Board member of The Purcell Society

Reginald Mobley

Noted for his ‘shimmering voice’ (BachTrack), GRAMMY-nominated American countertenor Reginald Mobley is globally renowned for his interpretation of baroque, classical, and modern repertoire, and leads a prolific career on both sides of the Atlantic. An advocate for diversity in music and its programming, Reginald became the first-ever Programming Consultant for the Handel & Haydn Society following several years of leading H&H in its community engaging Every Voice concerts.

He holds the position of Visiting Artist for Diversity Outreach with the Baroque ensemble Apollo’s Fire, and is also leading a research project in the UK funded by the AHRC to uncover music by composers from diverse backgrounds. His American concert schedule includes solos recitals (New York at the Miller Theatre, Chicago (Collaborative Arts Institute)), concerts with orchestras performing Handel’s Messiah with, this year, the Pittsburgh Symphony, Philadelphia and Minnesota orchestras and Carmina Burana with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as well as regular appearances with the most prestigious baroque ensembles: Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Early Music Vancouver, Collegium San Diego, Seraphic Fire, to name but a few. Recent and future highlights include his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood Festival (Andris Nelson), with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and with Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal, conducted by Masaaki Suzuki.

In Europe, Reginald has been invited to perform with Orchester Wiener Akademie, Balthasar Neumann Chor & Ensemble, Freiburger Barockorchester, I Barocchisti, Bach Society in Stuttgart, Holland Baroque Orchestra, Dutch Bach Society, Monteverdi Choir and English baroque soloists, as well as the City of Birmingham Orchestra and the Budapest Festival Orchestra for a series of performances as Ottone in L’incoronazione di Poppea. He has also engaged in a few projects together with the Academy of Ancient Music in Cambridge, singing the role or Disinganno in Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno and devising a new program, Sons of England, supported by UKAHRC, which reflects his research under their umbrella, which will be touring in April 2024. Reginald gave a Purcell, Handel and Sancho program for his solo debut recital in Paris, which he repeated as part of the Bayreuth baroque opera festival in September 2023.

His first solo album with ALPHA Classics was released to great acclaim in June 2023 to coincide with a major series of concerts with pianist Baptiste Trotignon in Paris, York and Liverpool as well as part of both the Aix-en-Provence and BBC PROMS festivals. In addition, Reginald features on several albums with the Monteverdi Choir, Agave Baroque and Stuttgart Bach Society.