Biography

Jonathan Cohen has forged a career as a conductor, cellist, and keyboardist. Known for his passion and commitment to chamber music, he is equally at home in such diverse activities as Baroque opera and the Classical symphonic repertoire. Beginning this season, he is the new artistic director of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, and he continues as artistic director of Arcangelo and Tetbury Festival in the UK, and as music director of Les Violons du Roy in Quebec. Throughout the 2023–24 season, Mr. Cohen continues to have a strong presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe he conducts the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Liège Royal Philharmonic, and Frankfurt Radio Symphony. In his first season at the Handel and Haydn Society, he leads Handel’s Israel in Egypt and Messiah. Projects with Les Violons du Roy include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and a US tour. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with these performances.

Mr. Cohen founded Arcangelo in 2010. The ensemble became Wigmore Hall’s first Baroque ensemble in residence and has toured to the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Konzerthaus, Barbican Centre, Cologne Philharmonie, Salzburg Festival, MA Festival Bruges, and made three appearances at the BBC Proms. Arcangelo’s founding commitment to the recording studio has produced 28 critically lauded albums that have won multiple Gramophone Awards, an ECHO Klassik Award, a BBC Music Magazine Award, and a Grammy nomination.