Jeanne Lamon

Critically acclaimed for her interpretations of Baroque and Classical repertoire on period instruments, violinist and conductor Jeanne Lamon served for decades as music director of Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, elevating the ensemble to worldwide prominence. Her lively stage presence and personal warmth consistently engaged listeners and fellow musicians alike. She founded an artist-training initiative that offered Tafelmusik participants two workshops annually. After stepping down from the orchestra’s leadership, she assumed the artistic directorship of the Health Arts Society of Ontario.

New York City was Lamon’s birthplace on August 18, 1949. Having started violin lessons at seven, she worked with Editha Braham and Gabriel Banat at the Westchester Conservatory of Music. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Brandeis University under Robert Koff’s guidance. Following graduation she moved to the Netherlands for study with Herman Krebbers, then adopted the Baroque violin in the early 1970s while training with Sigiswald Kuijken. A few years later she returned to the United States, where she held concertmaster posts with several early-music groups across North America and Europe, among them Il Complesso Barocco, Boston Baroque, and the Smithsonian Chamber Players in Washington; she also taught early music at Smith College in Massachusetts. In 1974 she became the first violinist awarded the Erwin Bodky Award by the Cambridge Society for Early Music for distinguished achievement in period performance.

Guest engagements with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra led to her appointment as the ensemble’s music director in 1981. Under her leadership the Canadian group achieved international stature through concerts and recordings and is now counted among the foremost period-instrument orchestras. Lamon launched the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute in 2002 to instruct both professionals and newcomers in historical techniques; the program’s popularity prompted a second winter workshop beginning in 2013. She continued as music director until 2014, thereafter serving as music director emerita, and that same year accepted the artistic directorship of the Health Arts Society of Ontario, an organization that arranges performances for residents of retirement and nursing homes. She relinquished the post in 2019 upon relocating to Victoria, British Columbia, with her partner, cellist Christina Mahler.

Most of Lamon’s discography was recorded with Tafelmusik for CBC Records, Sony Classical, Philips, and additional labels; in 2012 the orchestra inaugurated its own Tafelmusik Media imprint. Her debut album, issued in 1986, featured Leonardo Leo’s cello concertos with Anner Bylsma as soloist. Lamon and the orchestra together received nine JUNO Awards, one of which—the 2003 release of Dardanus and Le temple de la Gloire—also earned a Grammy nomination. Additional notable projects include her direction and solo appearances in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, the latter also a JUNO winner. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2000 and a Member of the Order of Ontario in 2014. Jeanne Lamon died in Victoria on June 20, 2021, at the age of seventy-one.