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Georg Philipp Telemann was born in Magdeburg, the son of a Lutheran deacon who died in 1685, leaving the mother to raise their three children alone. The youth showed remarkable talent in music but was temporarily discouraged in his chosen pursuit by Puritan Lutherans, who told Telemann's mother that he would turn out no better than "a clown, a tightrope walker or a marmot-trainer." In opposition to his mother's wishes, Telemann continued to study in secrecy until she relented, allowing him to train under the highly respected Kantor Benedict Christiani at the Old City School. Outside of some early lessons in reading tablature, Telemann was self-taught and was capable of playing the flute, violin, viola da gamba, oboe, trombone, double bass, and several keyboard instruments.

Telemann began to write music from childhood, producing an opera, Sigismundus, by age 12. He was sent away to Zellerfeld in 1694; at the age of 20, the composer resolved to study law in Leipzig, but a chance meeting in Halle with 16-year-old Georg Friedrich Handel appears to have drawn him back to music. Telemann began writing cantatas for a church in Leipzig and quickly became a local celebrity. In 1702, he was named director of the Leipzig Opera, and over the next three years, he wrote four operas specifically for this company. Early on, Telemann's career was marked by sharp contrasts, both professionally and personally. In 1705, he became the Kapellmeister in Sorau, now part of Poland, only serving three years before moving on to the court in Eisenach (1708-1712). In 1712, Telemann accepted an appointment in Frankfurt to the post of Kapellmeister at the Church of the Barefoot Friars and as director of municipal music. Telemann married Amalie Eberlin in 1709, who died in childbirth during the first year of their union. Telemann remarried in 1714 to Maria Katharina Textor, whose gambling addiction was so bad the citizens of Hamburg took up a collection in order to save the couple from bankruptcy. Later, Telemann's second spouse would abandon him in favor of a Swedish military officer.

In 1721, Telemann's opera Der geduldige Socrates was performed in Hamburg. That same year, Hamburg's officials awarded Telemann the positions of Kantor of the Johanneum and musical director of the city's principal churches. In doing so, Telemann accepted the responsibility of writing two cantatas for every Sunday, a new Passion setting annually, and contributing music to a wide variety of liturgical and civic events. Telemann readily met these obligations and in 1722 accepted the directorship of the Hamburg Opera, serving until its closure in 1738.

Telemann was also one of the first composers to concentrate on the business of publishing his own music, and at least forty early prints of his music are known from editions which he prepared and sold himself. These published editions were in some cases extremely popular and spread Telemann's fame throughout Europe; in particular, the Der Getreue Musik Meister (1728), Musique de Table (or Tafelmusik, 1733), and the 6 Concerts et 6 Suites (1734) were in wide use during the composer's lifetime. Starting in the 1740s until about 1755, Telemann focused less on composition, turning his attentions to the study of music theory. He wrote many oratorios in the mid-1750s, including Donnerode (1756), Das befreite Israel (1759), and Die Auferstehung und Himmelfährt Jesu (1760). Telemann's long life ended at the age of 86 in 1767.

Georg Philipp Telemann was considered the most important German composer of his day, and his reputation outlasted him for some time, but ultimately it was unable to withstand the shadow cast by the growing popularity of his contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach. Telemann's enormous output, perhaps the largest of any classical composer in history, includes parts of at least 31 cantata cycles, many operas, concertos, oratorios, songs, music for civic occasions and church services, passions, orchestral suites, and abundant amounts of chamber music. While many of these works have been lost, most still exist, and the sheer bulk of his creativity has made it difficult for scholars and performers alike. The inevitable revival of interest in Telemann did not arrive until the 1920s but has grown exponentially ever since, and in the 21st century, more of Telemann's music is played, known, understood, and studied than at any time in history. ~ TiVo Staff

Richard Hickox was one of the most active and well-known conductors in Britain, with a strong international reputation, especially for performing music of his native country. He began conducting at the age of 16 and, after studies at the Royal College of Music and Queen's College, where he was an organ scholar, he founded the City of London Sinfonia in 1971, of which he remained musical director until his death.

In 1972 he became organist and master of music at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, remaining in that position until 1982. In 1977 he was appointed conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and in 1982 became the music director of the Northern Sinfonia in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He is credited with re-establishing that orchestra as an ensemble of stature, confirmed by a highly successful tour of the United States and a complete Beethoven symphony recording cycle for the ASV label. He was associate conductor of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra from 1982 to 1985, and took the same title at the London Symphony Orchestra in 1985. He shared leadership duties with Simon Standage for Collegium Musicum 90, a period-instrument group the two founded.

All this activity made Hickox a very familiar face on the British music scene. With his various choral and orchestral ensembles he frequently appeared at the major British music festivals and at the BBC Proms Concerts. He participated in several notable special projects, including a BBC video production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and an appearance in the Istanbul Festival leading a production of Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio inside the actual sultans' seraglio in the Topkapi Museum. He also provided music for a Ken Russell film for the BBC on the wives of great composers.

In the 1990s he increased his involvement with opera, leading new productions of Handel's Julius Caesar in Berlin, Walton's Troilus and Cressida in a live BBC broadcast of an Opera North production, and Vaughan Williams' Pilgrim's Progress at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He conducted a televised production of Britten's Turn of the Screw on the BBC in 2004.

He guest conducted around the world, including frequent appearances with the Los Angeles Opera and the New Japan Philharmonic in Tokyo. He made over 300 recordings and won numerous awards, including a Gramophon Award in 1992 for his account of Britten's War Requiem, and three Gramophone Awards, a Diapason d'Or, the Deutsche Schalplattenpreis, and a Grammy for his recording of Britten's Peter Grimes in 1995 on the Chandos label, probably the most honored classical recording of the last quarter of the twentieth century. His recordings appeared on the ASV, Argo, EMI, and Virgin labels, and in the early '90s he had been an exclusive Chandos artist. More recording awards were received in 2001 and 2006 for the music of Vaughan Williams and Stanford, respectively. In 2005, he was appointed director of the Opera Australia. Hickox died of a heart attack following a recording session in Wales in November 2008.

Collegium Musicum 90 is one of Britain's best-known and highly regarded period-instrument ensembles. One of its unusual features is that it was founded and directed by two leaders, one most associated with historical music performance and the other with his work with standard modern orchestras.

Born in 1941, violinist Simon Standage is one of the best-known instrumentalists on London's busy period instruments stage. He has played in modern music ensembles, having been a sub-leader (i.e., assistant concertmaster) of the English Chamber Orchestra (1974-1978) and leader (concertmaster) of the City of London Sinfonia (1980-1989).

However, he became best known as the leader of the English Concert (1973-1991), the famous period-instrument group founded by harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock, and as the first violinist of the Salomon Quartet, the first major British quartet to use period string instruments -- instruments set up with the same sorts of strings, bows, bridges, and so forth as in the period of the music to be played.

Richard Hickox, six-and-a-half years younger, was an organ scholar at Queen's College Cambridge who in 1971 founded the City of London Sinfonia and the Richard Hickox Singers and specialized in Baroque music, but on regular instruments. Despite his initial reputation for Baroque music, his skills as a choral conductor in particular eclipsed it, and in 1976 he became the conductor of the London Symphony Chorus. He also has had leadership positions with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Northern Sinfonia, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra.

It was in the midst of this success (which also included Hickox's frequent conducting of opera) that Standage and Hickox in 1990 co-founded the Collegium Musicum 90 to be a standing Baroque period orchestra. (The name Collegium Musicum, or musical guild, has been used in the names of so many groups that it is practically a generic term for Baroque-era ensembles.) It has become Hickox's primary means of performing the Baroque music that interested him so much in the early part of his career.

Collegium Musicum 90 established itself quickly. It gained an exclusive contract with the British record company Chandos and has made several records. It has toured Europe and most of the major British music festivals. It has performed at the BBC Promenade Concerts, the City of London Festival, and the Cheltenham Festival, and its recording of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas was chosen by the BBC to be the soundtrack of a filmed version of the opera made in connection with the Purcell tercentenary observances in 1995.

Internationally appreciated for the tenderness and beauty of her soprano voice, Patrizia Kwella was born to a Polish father and Venetian mother, both non-musicians. Nevertheless, she sang and played the piano at an early age. She also learned to play the cello and was a member of the Nottinghamshire County Youth Orchestra. Her formal musical education began when she entered the Royal College of Music where she studied singing, cello, and piano. Gradually, her interest turned to singing as more glamorous than instrumental playing. While still a student, Kwella was the soprano soloist in the annual televised performance of Handel's Messiah from Royal Albert Hall. The next year at Albert Hall, she gave her debut live broadcast singing the impassioned solo Lamento della ninfa by Monteverdi under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner at a BBC Promenade Concert. Kwella has performed throughout the world. In the United States, she sang with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and with the San Francisco, Houston, and Washington Symphony Orchestras. She appeared to great acclaim with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and sang the title role on Handel's Theodora at the British Embassy in Paris. Kwella has also premiered many contemporary works, such as Night's Mask and Pli de Lin by Colin Matthews, The Sleeping Lord by David Matthews, and the Colin Matthews orchestration of Gustav Holst's song cycle Dream City. In May 2001, she gave the first performance of the Gloria in excelsis Deo by Handel, which had recently been uncovered in the archives of the Royal Academy of Music. Her other re-creations of rarely performed older works have included Haydn's The Creation with Anne Hunter's recently discovered libretto, the first performance in modern times of Zelenka's Requiem, Weber's Mass in E flat major, and a well-received presentation of an Elizabethan Masque in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Her repertoire also includes solo Bach cantatas, Mahler's Symphony No. 2, Mozart's Mass in C minor, Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony, and Tippett's A Child of Our Time.

Catherine Denley is a successful English mezzo-soprano who has concentrated, in the earlier part of her career, on oratorio performance.

She grew up in her home town and began to learn to thing there. She graduated from Trinity College of Music in London. After graduation, she obtained a full-time job in the BBC Singers, but soon found it possible to leave that group to pursue her full-time solo career.

She is married to Miles Golding, a violinist. They live in Hertfordshire, England.

She records for Hyperion Records where her credits reflect her emphasis in oratorio performance. In addition to three sets of Vivaldi sacred music on that label she has sung on a disc of American choral music, the Bruckner Requiem, and six Handel oratorios, Alexander Balus, Deborah, Joseph and His Brethren, Judas Maccabaeus, Messiah, and Ottone. However, she has also participated on that label's complete Schubert song series, appearing on four discs.

Live performances include Bach's Christmas Oratorio (Salzburg and Innsbruck), St. Matthew Passion at the Barbican Centre in London and Canterbury Cathedral and B minor Mass with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Her many Handel performances include Jephta and Judas Maccabaeus with the RIAS in Berlin, Messiah at the Barbican and in Macau, La Resurrezione in Paris with Les Musiciens du Louvre, Solomon on Berlin radio, and Deborah at a Promenade Concert in London. She has sung Vivaldi's Gloria with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

More recent works on her concert repertory include Mahler's Eight Symphony, which she sang at Wells Cathedral, Beethoven's Ninth under John Eliot Gardiner in Japan, Mahler's Ninth on Dublin TV with Owain Arwel Hughes conducting, Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust with Franz Welser-Möst and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall, Britten's Spring Symphony with Kent Nagano conducting the Hallé Orchestra, and Mozart's Requiem in London's Royal Festival Hall, Finland, and Spain.

She has appeared on British Channel 4's "Maestro" series singing Vivaldi arias and appeared at the Festival of Flanders and the Edinburgh Festival.

Despite the emphasis on oratorio performance, she has begun appearing in operas, mostly from the early performance repertory. These include Handel's Ezio at the Théâtre du Champs-Elysée in Paris and the part of Juno in the Hallé (Germany) Opernhaus in Handel's Semele. She has also performed in the U.S., Canada, Israel, China, the Czech Republic, and the Ukraine.

Michael George is an established British bass-baritone. He began as a boy singer in the chorus of King's College, Cambridge, conducted by Sir David Willcocks. His higher education was at the Royal College of Music in London, where he won several major prizes.

His career has included performances with all the leading orchestras in Britain, and extensive performances with overseas orchestras and in major festivals around the world. He has worked with Sir Neville Marriner, John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir Charles Mackerras, Trevor Pinnock, Richard Hickox, Vernon Handley, Kurt Sanderling, Jean-Claude Malgoire, David Zinman, Ricardo Muti, and Kent Nagano.

He frequently records, and has appeared on a number of major labels. For Decca he appeared in Haydn's Creation. For BMG Conifer, he recorded Finzi's Let us Garlands Bring. His singing in Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius is on the EMI label. For Chandos, he has performed in Stainer's The Crucifixion and Handel's Dafne, and he was in the original instruments recordings of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony on the Nimbus label. A major portion of his discography is on the Hyperion label, including a performance of Handel's Messiah with The Sixteen. On that label he most frequently sings solo with The King's Consort; such releases include a major project of the complete songs, odes, and church anthems of Henry Purcell and a large number of Handel operas and oratorios, including Alexander Balus, Occasional Oratorio, Ottone, Deborah, Acis and Galatea, Judas Maccabaeus, and Joshua. George sings on six volumes of Hyperion's great series of complete Schubert song recordings with Graham Johnson, and in Emmanuel Chabrier's Briséis and Jan Dismas Zelenka's Lamentations.

He is married to soprano Julie Kennard.

A serious artist with an attractive bass-baritone instrument, Stephen Roberts has succeeded on the opera stage as well as the concert platform. His ability to master the music of many styles and many periods enabled him to attract the attention of several prominent conductors whose interest helped foster his career. In addition to an active performing schedule, he has made a considerable number of recordings.

During the years 1969 to 1971, Roberts studied on scholarship with Gerald English and Redvers Llewelyn at London's Royal College of Music. While a student, he won the Agnes Nichols Trophy, as well as a Boise Foundation grant. In 1973, he was awarded second place in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Competition.

He began his professional career as a Lay Clerk at Westminster Abbey in London, holding that position from 1972 to 1976. Thereafter, he moved on to accept other engagements, soon becoming a frequent guest in choral and orchestral concerts. His activities took him to many parts of Europe, America, Israel, South America, and the Far East. After specializing in music of the Baroque period, Roberts began to explore other parts of baritone repertory. Eventually, his opera repertory came to include such diverse roles as Falke in Die Fledermaus, Ramiro in Ravel's L'heure espagnole, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Ubalde in Gluck's Armide, and the self-absorbed Mittenhofer in Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers. As a corollary, his concert work expanded to embrace televised performances in such works Britten's War Requiem, Delius' Sea Drift, Kurt Weill's Sieben Todsünden, and Handel's oratorios Judas Maccabaeus and Jephtha.

A tour of Italy and America with the London Bach Society afforded Roberts additional recognition while, in England, he became a popular artist at Proms concerts. His recording activities began early. Among his many important recordings are: Penderecki's Lukas-Passion; two Elgar oratorios, The Apostles and Caractucus; Fauré's Requiem, Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony; Handel's Alexander's Feast; Orff's Carmina Burana; Stravinsky's Canticum Sacrum and Mass; Gluck's Armide; Mozart's Mass in E major, and a collection of works by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.