H+H Orchestra + Chorus

After 14 years as artistic director of the Handel and Haydn Society, Harry Christophers has assumed the role of Conductor Laureate. Since his appointment as artistic director, Mr. Christophers and H+H have enjoyed an ambitious artistic journey including showcases of works premiered in the United States by H+H since 1815, broad education programming, community partnerships, concerts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at Tanglewood, and a series of recordings on the CORO label. Between 2015 and 2016, Mr. Christophers and H+H celebrated the organization’s Bicentennial.

Mr. Christophers is known internationally as founder and conductor of the British choir and period-instrument ensemble The Sixteen, which he has directed throughout Europe, America, Australia, and Asia, gaining a distinguished reputation for his work in Renaissance, Baroque, and 20th- and 21st-century music. In 2000 he instituted The Choral Pilgrimage, a tour of British cathedrals from York to Canterbury.

He has recorded over 150 titles for which he has won numerous awards, including the coveted Gramophone Award for early music and the prestigious Classical Brit Award. His CD IKON was nominated for a 2007 Grammy and his second recording of Handel’s Messiah on The Sixteen’s label CORO won the prestigious MIDEM Classical Award. In 2009, he received one of classical music’s highest accolades, the Classic FM Gramophone Awards Artist of the Year Award, and The Sixteen won the Baroque Vocal Award for Handel Coronation Anthems, a CD which also received a 2010 Grammy Award nomination, as did Palestrina, Vol. 3, in 2014, and Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 in 2015. From 2007 he has featured with The Sixteen in the highly successful BBC television series Sacred Music, presented by actor Simon Russell Beale. The latest hour-long program, devoted to Monteverdi’s Vespers, screened in 2015.He recently collaborated with Sara Mohr-Pietsch to produce a book A New Heaven, published by Faber.  In 2021, he received the prestigious Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art by Chorus America.

Mr. Christophers was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honors. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and also of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and has Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Leicester, Canterbury Christ Church, Northumbria and Kent. In 2020 he was made President of the Cathedral Music Trust.

Appointed Concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society in 2011, violinist Aisslinn Nosky captivates audiences in Boston and around the world with her innovative interpretations and impeccable technique. Her fierce passion for early music and skill as a soloist, director, and conductor has generated robust appreciation by press and audiences alike. Hailed as “superb” by The New York Times and “a fearsomely powerful musician” by The Toronto Star, widespread demand for Aisslinn’s artistry and leadership continues to grow.

Outside of her work with H+H, Aisslinn collaborates as guest director and soloist with orchestras across the globe, including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Charlotte Symphony, Utah Symphony and Holland Baroque. She was a member of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra from 2005 to 2016 and served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Niagara Symphony from 2016 to 2019. Currently, Aisslinn is Guest Artist-in-Residence of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.

Aisslinn is a founding member of the Eybler Quartet, who explore repertoire from the early quartet literature on period instruments. Their most recent recording features Beethoven’s Op. 18 string quartets and was released in 2018 (CORO). Gramophone Magazine mused, “they make no bones about treating Beethoven as a radical. ...This set might delight you or it might infuriate you: either way, I suspect, Beethoven would have been more than happy.” With the Eybler Quartet, Aisslinn serves on the faculty of EQ: Evolution of the String Quartet at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. EQ is an intensive summer course for emerging artists which celebrates the lineage of the string quartet, both as a historical genre and as a freshly invigorated practice in the 21st century.

Born in Canada, Aisslinn began playing violin at age three and made her solo debut with the CBC Vancouver Orchestra at age eight. A passionate educator, she has served on the faculty of Amherst Early Music Festival and the International Baroque Institute of Longy, and her teaching/performing residencies include the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, the Rotterdam Conservatory, the Hanyang University College of Music, the Juilliard School, and the New England Conservatory of Music.

Photo: Liz Linder

Ian Watson
Associate Conductor

Scott Allen Jarrett
Resident Conductor, Chorus

Anthony Trecek-King
Resident Conductor, Chorus

Reginald Mobley
Programming Consultant