Matthew Halls, guest conductor
Arvo Pärt, Magnificat
Stephen Paulus, Nunc dimittis
Bach, Cantata BWV 10, Meine Seel erhebt den Herren
Herbert Howells, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis
British conductor Matthew Halls is in his second season as artistic director of the Oregon Bach Festival. He has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and Utah Symphony, in repertoire from Bach and Handel to Kernis and Tippett. His debut with the Toronto Symphony, in which he led Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “captured much of the energy and excitement that its first audience must have felt at its premiere nearly 200 years ago” (Toronto Star).
Halls’ 2015–2016 North American appearances include the Nashville Symphony for the complete Brandenburg Concertos, Los Angeles and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, Oregon Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Les Violons du Roy in Quebec. In spring 2014 he made a triumphant debut with Concentus Musicus Wien, substituting on short notice for Nikolaus Harnoncourt in an acclaimed performance of Haydn’s Seasons. He has also appeared with the BBC Scottish Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, and Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and makes regular appearances in Austria and on tour with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra. Overseas this season, he appears with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Konzerthaus Berlin, and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. He is featured with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan and returns to both the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in Reykjavik and Musica Viva in Moscow.
Halls is represented on disc with Handel’s Parnasso in Festa (Hyperion), winner of the Stanley Sadie Handel Recording Prize. His recordings on Linn Records include a set of four Bach harpsichord concertos conducted from the keyboard, which Gramophone welcomed as “joyful and invigorating.”