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Perhaps the leading post-Harnoncourt cellist in the early music movement, Christophe Coin has developed a particular interest in music of late eighteenth century Vienna. He began studying the cello as a child in Caen, then enrolled in the Paris Conservatory, where his principal teacher was André Navarra. After taking first prize in a conservatory competition, Coin moved to Vienna where, at the Academy for Music, he became a disciple of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and performed in the latter's Concentus Musicus. Coin also studied with gamba guru Jordi Savall at the Schola Cantorum in Basle. Through Savall, he was able to perform with the ensemble Hesperion XX.

Coin joined England's Academy of Ancient Music, with which he made several recordings as an orchestra member and as a soloist. In 1984 he founded his own chamber orchestra, Ensemble Mosaïques, but dissolved it the following year. He did salvage the name, at least, when he recruited leaders of its string section to join him in forming the Quatuor Mosaïques, a group mainly dedicated to the music of Mozart and Haydn, but also moving forward into scores by Beethoven and Schubert. In 1991 he was also named music director of the Limoges Baroque Ensemble. His academic appointments include a post at the Schola Cantorum in Basle, and heading studies in Baroque cello and viola da gamba at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris. Although his performing career has been centered in Europe, Coin has become known to North American audiences through his recordings. Among his more CD projects are highly regarded recordings of Classical-era quartets, and a series of discs devoted to Bach cantatas featuring the violoncello piccolo.

Monica Huggett has evolved from a hardworking fixture of the historical performance movement to a true star of the Baroque violin, essaying virtuoso works like the Bach sonatas and partitas and founding her own performing group. Huggett was born in London and educated at the Green School for Girls, moving on to the Royal Academy of Music and intending to pursue a career as a conventional violinist. The first time she played a Baroque violin, however, she felt an immediate connection with the instrument. She studied with several of the major figures who brought historically informed performances into the mainstream of concert life, including Sigiswald Kuijken, Gustav Leonhardt, and Ton Koopman, the last named of whom became something of a mentor. The two worked together to found the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1980, and Huggett became the group's leader. Later, both musicians became involved with the Portland (OR) Baroque Orchestra in the U.S.

Steadily, Huggett began to make more solo appearances in concert and on recordings. Her set of Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin was named an Editors' Choice by Gramophone magazine in December 1997, and her 2001 set of Biber's spectacular violin sonatas was especially widely praised: "This is a disc that merits the attention of anybody who appreciates the highest flights of violin playing, from whatever period," raved the Telegraph. Huggett was notable for the chronological range of the repertoire she performed; she played everything from Renaissance consort music to Beethoven's violin concerto, selecting appropriate instruments for each. She was adventurous in terms of the concepts of her recordings; Haydn and the Gypsies, a 2001 disc exploring the influence of Romany music on Haydn and other composers, was a notable example. After making guest conducting appearances with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the European Union Baroque Orchestra, Huggett founded her own ensemble, Sonnerie, in the mid-1990s. That group likewise made frequent successes with unfamiliar repertoire; its 2003 disc The World's First Piano Concertos, featuring works by J.C. Bach, Abel, Hayes, and Hook, was both attractive and challenging in its assertion of a new dividing line between piano and harpsichord music. Between concert tours, Huggett serves as professor of Baroque violin at her alma mater, the Royal Academy of Music. Huggett has continued to develop her career as a conductor with recordings such as her 2012 St. John Passion of J.S. Bach.

The Academy of Ancient Music is among the highest-regarded period-instrument orchestras in the world. Initially focused on the music of the Baroque, the Academy has grown to perform music from the Classical period as well as new music written for historical instruments. The orchestra has recorded and performed prolifically since its founding, working with leading performers and ensembles from the historical performance sphere and beyond.

Keyboardist Christopher Hogwood established the Academy of Ancient Music in 1973, using as his model an ensemble that had been founded in 1726 to perform music that was at least 150 years old. Thus, Hogwood's orchestra was one of the first in modern times to perform Baroque works on Baroque instruments. Hogwood chose members who were not only masters of their instruments but also scholars of the performance style of the period. The orchestra quickly gained recognition for its authentic performances and recordings, or at least stirred up musicological debate. In 1978, it spawned a Classical period orchestra to perform the works of Mozart, Haydn, and their contemporaries. That orchestra has recorded or taken on recording the complete symphonies of Mozart (the first such cycle on period instruments), Haydn, and Beethoven, and the complete piano concertos of Beethoven and Mozart. Recorded for Decca, these were under the direction of Hogwood, who also led recordings of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, Haydn's Orfeo ed Euridice, and Handel's Rinaldo, all of which were prize winners and featured Cecilia Bartoli.

In 1996, Andrew Manze was named associate director, and Paul Goodwin was named associate conductor, allowing the Academy to expand its performance schedule and begin recording for the Harmonia Mundi label. The Academy also began extending invitations to others, such as Stephen Cleobury with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge; Edward Higginbottom with the Choir of New College, Oxford; Stephen Layton with Polyphony; and Masaaki Suzuki with the Japan Bach Collegium to be guest directors, furthering the Academy's vocal and choral repertoire. Instrumentalists Giuliano Carmignola, Richard Egarr, and Pavlo Beznosiuk were also asked to guest direct.

Goodwin began commissioning new works specifically for the distinctive instruments of the Academy, the first being 1997's Eternity's Sunrise for voice & baroque ensemble by John Tavener. Other commissioned works came from David Bedford; John Woolrich, whose Arcangelo for the group commemorated the 350th birthday of Arcangelo Corelli; and Thea Musgrave. Mahan Esfahani was commissioned to orchestrate Bach's Art of the Fugue, giving its premiere at the 2012 BBC Proms.

Manze stepped down from his post in 2003, as the Academy celebrated its 30th anniversary. The ensemble marked the year by also celebrating the Corelli anniversary and the 60th birthday of John Tavener in special concerts, and by beginning an exploration of the music of Mendelssohn, once again expanding its musicological horizons. Egarr was named associate director in 2005 and music director the following year, succeeding Hogwood, who was named director emeritus. The Academy's discography continues to grow, recording for the Decca, Signum Classics, and ABC Classics labels, among others. In 2013, the orchestra created and began recording on its own label, AAM Records, where it issued a recording of Dussek's Messe Solemnelle in 2020. That year, the Academy was also heard on a 2019 recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the King's College Choir, under Cleobury. ~ Patsy Morita & Keith Finke

A pioneering figure in the historical performance movement, conductor Christopher Hogwood became one of its most prominent figures and retained that status for many years. He was best known as the director of the Academy of Ancient Music, an ensemble that he founded in 1973 and that still exists, but he also conducted modern orchestras and was active in other fields as well, including teaching and musicology. Hogwood's recording catalog was vast, and his performances continued to appear in reissues after his death in 2014.

Hogwood was born on September 10, 1941, in Nottingham. He attended the Skinners' School and went on to Pembroke College at Oxford University. There, he studied music and classics, graduating in 1964. Even at that point, he was interested in early music, a rare specialty in those days, and he studied harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt and Rafael Puyana. Hogwood was also influenced by harpsichordist Thurston Dart and conductor Raymond Leppard (with whom he took conducting classes), both major figures in the budding early music scene. He spent a year in Prague on a British Council scholarship, studying with harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. Back in Britain, Hogwood, with multi-instrumentalist David Munrow, Hogwood organized the Early Music Consort, which specialized in medieval music, in 1967. The earliest of Hogwood's many LP recordings date from this period. Hogwood struck out on his own in 1973 with a new group, the Academy of Ancient Music, located in Cambridge and specializing in music of the Baroque and Classical eras. He remained its director until 2006, and it is still flourishing under the directorship of Laurence Cummings. Hogwood took the name from an 18th century London music organization.

As the historical performance movement (Hogwood preferred the term "historically informed performance" to "authentic performance" or "historical performance") entered the musical mainstream, Hogwood was both prolific and popular. He issued eight recordings in 1984 alone, outdoing himself with nine in 1989. He and the Academy of Ancient Music often recorded for the Decca label in Britain and L'Oiseau-Lyre in France. Beginning in the early '80s, Hogwood branched out increasingly often into conducting orchestras with conventional instruments, often shaping his performances according to principles he had developed in the early music world. He combined Baroque works with 20th century neoclassic pieces by the likes of Stravinsky and Michael Tippett in concert.

In the U.S., Hogwood was music director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra from 1987 to 1992. In 1994, he conducted Boston's Handel and Haydn Society orchestra in a re-creation of the 1808 concert where Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, and Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ("Pastoral") were premiered. Hogwood stepped down as conductor of the Academy of Ancient Music in 2006 in favor of Richard Egarr but remained as conductor emeritus and led new performances annually. He taught at Cornell University and at Gresham College London, delivering a series of free public lectures at the latter. His books include a popular biography of Handel. Hogwood made many performing editions of early music. He died of a brain tumor on September 24, 2014, in Cambridge. ~ James Manheim