Nicholas McGegan

Nicholas McGegan stands among the foremost champions of historically informed performance in the United States, having unearthed numerous overlooked Baroque operas and placed them both on concert programs and on disc. Although Handel remains central to his identity, McGegan has also championed music extending well into the nineteenth century, bringing an identical spirit of playfulness to every score. He led the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra as music director for thirty-four seasons before assuming the title of music director laureate in 2020. That same year he guided the SWR Symphonieorchester in support of Gil Shaham’s recording of Mozart’s violin-and-orchestra works.

Born on 14 January 1950 in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, McGegan pursued piano studies at London’s Trinity College of Music, where he also took up the flute yet harbored no particular interest in period practice. At Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, however, a required acoustics course taught by Nicholas Shackleton frequently convened in the professor’s residence, which housed an extensive collection of eighteenth-century wind instruments and a lodger named Christopher Hogwood. Proximity to Hogwood, already a leading figure in England’s period-instrument movement, proved decisive. Although McGegan had been concentrating on twentieth-century repertoire, he one day picked up a wooden Baroque flute and never returned to his earlier path. Throughout the 1970s he emerged as a prominent member of Britain’s historically informed scene, performing on flute, harpsichord, and fortepiano with every major ensemble, most notably Hogwood’s Academy of Ancient Music. In 1976 he was appointed director of early music at London’s Royal College of Music.

A three-month artist-in-residence invitation from Washington University in St. Louis in 1979 proved pivotal; the engagement was repeatedly extended after his teaching and performances generated strong local enthusiasm. Six years later he accepted the music directorship of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, then a leaderless cooperative. Under his guidance the ensemble retained its collaborative ethos while establishing itself as America’s premier period-instrument orchestra and one of the world’s finest, issuing numerous recordings.

Among his international appointments, McGegan served as artistic director of the Göttingen Handel Festival—the world’s oldest Baroque festival—from 1991 to 2011. He has disseminated historically informed principles through collaborations with Hungary’s Capella Savaria, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and many other ensembles, as well as with opera companies such as Covent Garden and San Francisco Opera. He also established the Arcadian Academy, a chamber ensemble drawn from Philharmonia Baroque’s ranks, directed the Baroque series of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and joined the advisory boards of the University of Maryland Handel Festival and London’s Handel House. In partnership with choreographer Mark Morris he has staged Rameau’s Platée at the Edinburgh Festival and Handel’s L’Allegro at Ravinia and New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival.

Notwithstanding his scholarly credentials, McGegan’s performances consistently emphasize delight over didacticism. He has likened the Philharmonia Baroque to a jazz band for its capacity to perform with both unity and spontaneity—a description borne out by the group’s recordings and by his own appearances in any repertoire. In 2019 he appeared on the BIS release Josef Mysliveček: Complete Music for Keyboard, partnering pianist Clare Hammond. He relinquished the Philharmonia Baroque podium in 2020 to become music director laureate, then conducted the SWR Symphonieorchester again in 2022 for Gil Shaham’s traversal of Mozart’s violin concertos.