Christopher Hogwood

A leading advocate within the early music revival, conductor Christopher Hogwood maintained a central position in that movement across several decades. His primary association was with the Academy of Ancient Music, which he established in 1973 and which continues today, though he also directed conventional ensembles and pursued parallel careers in pedagogy and scholarship. His extensive discography remained available through posthumous reissues following his passing in 2014.

Born in Nottingham on September 10, 1941, Hogwood completed his secondary education at the Skinners' School before enrolling at Pembroke College, Oxford University. He pursued degrees in music and classics, completing them in 1964. Already drawn to the then-uncommon field of early music, he received harpsichord instruction from Gustav Leonhardt and Rafael Puyana. Additional formative influences included harpsichordist Thurston Dart and conductor Raymond Leppard, from whom he received conducting lessons; both men figured prominently in the developing early music community. A British Council scholarship enabled a year of study in Prague with harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. Upon returning to Britain, Hogwood joined multi-instrumentalist David Munrow in founding the Early Music Consort in 1967, an ensemble devoted to medieval repertoire. Several of his earliest LP recordings originated during this collaboration.

In 1973 Hogwood launched an independent venture, establishing the Academy of Ancient Music in Cambridge to focus on Baroque and Classical repertoire. He served as its director until 2006, after which the group thrived first under Richard Egarr and later under Laurence Cummings. The ensemble adopted its name from an eighteenth-century London musical society.

As historically informed performance gained wider acceptance—a term Hogwood favored over “authentic performance” or “historical performance”—he maintained an exceptionally active recording schedule, releasing eight albums in 1984 and nine in 1989. Many of these projects appeared on the Decca label in Britain and L’Oiseau-Lyre in France. From the early 1980s onward he increasingly led modern-instrument orchestras, applying interpretive approaches refined through his early music work. Programs frequently juxtaposed Baroque pieces with twentieth-century neoclassical compositions by Stravinsky and Michael Tippett.

In the United States, Hogwood held the post of music director with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra between 1987 and 1992. During 1994 he led Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society in a reconstruction of the 1808 concert that introduced Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, and Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 (“Pastoral”). Although he relinquished day-to-day leadership of the Academy of Ancient Music in 2006, he continued as conductor emeritus and appeared with the ensemble each season. Academic appointments included positions at Cornell University and Gresham College London, where he delivered a series of free public lectures. Among his publications was a widely read biography of Handel. He also prepared numerous performing editions of early repertoire. Hogwood died in Cambridge on September 24, 2014, from a brain tumor.