Jeannette Sorrell
Jeannette Sorrell is the conductor of the Cleveland, Ohio-based historical instrument ensemble Apollo's Fire. A major figure in the U.S. early music scene, she has also been a pioneer in programming that explores the relationship between early music and American folk music.
Sorrell was born in San Francisco in 1965. Her father was a critic and linguist, her mother a nurse, and both were educators. As a child, she took lessons in piano, violin, dance, and acting, practicing at first on a paper piano until the family could afford an actual instrument. The family moved when Sorrell was 15 to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, where she got her first job as an accompanist at a Southern Baptist church. There, she encountered American shape-note hymnody and developed an ongoing interest in the form. She began taking composition and conducting lessons and formed a small ensemble of her own. This won her a scholarship to Oberlin University, where she studied harpsichord with Lisa Crawford and conducting with Robert Spano. In 1989, Sorrell was accepted into the conducting program at the Tanglewood Summer Festival, taking lessons with Leonard Bernstein and Roger Norrington. Sorrell also traveled to the Netherlands for harpsichord lessons with Gustav Leonhardt.
In 1991, she was recruited by a talent headhunter to apply for the post of assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. Conductor Christoph von Dohnányi refused to interview her, stating that audiences would never accept a female conductor, but administrator Roger Wright heard of her interest in early music and offered to help fund a new period-instrument orchestra in Cleveland. In 1992, Apollo's Fire was launched, with Sorrell as music director; she remained in that position as of the mid-2020s. The group made its recording debut with Handel's Messiah, HWV 56, recorded in 1994-1995 and released in 1996.
The new group flourished, led by Sorrell on tours of the U.S. and eventually Europe. In 1999, Sorrell and Apollo's Fire made the first of many albums for the Avie label, releasing a recording of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610. The group also recorded for Eclectra and Koch in the '90s and 2000s; its first album for the latter was Scarborough Fayre: Traditional Tunes from the British Isles. That release reflected a new interest of Sorrell's in folk and traditional music, reflected both in programming and on recordings. Sorrell's pure Baroque performances, reflecting the application of the German Baroque concept of Affekt, were also distinctive and attracted critical attention in Europe as well as the U.S.
Sorrell is also in demand as a guest conductor, having led such groups as the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, and the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. She has also conducted choral music, including on a 2023 recording of Handel's Israel in Egypt. That album and various others reflected alterations by Sorrell that were substantial enough to be called adaptations. By 2024, when Sorrell and Apollo's Fire released a recording of Biber's Mystery Sonatas with Apollo's Fire concertmaster Alan Choo, Sorrell's discography numbered some 35 items.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Discography
15 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Handel: Israel in Egypt, HWV 54
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on Oct 6, 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell, Francisco Fullana
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on Oct 22, 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Christmas Vespers: Music of Michael Praetorius
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by Avie Records on Oct 23, 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Heavenly Bach - Arias & Cantatas of J.S. Bach
Amanda Forsythe, Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on Nov 18, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Christmas Music - Released by AVIE Records on Oct 19, 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Telemann: Don Quixote and Other Suites & Concertos
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by Avie Records on Jul 26, 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Dixit Dominus - Zadok the Priest - Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by Avie Records on Oct 9, 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Biber: Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas
Alan Choo, Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on Mar 1, 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G Minor - Ballet Music from Idomeneo
Classical - Released by Avie Records on Jul 13, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
O Jerusalem! City of Three Faiths (Live)
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
World - Released by AVIE Records on Feb 11, 2022
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
J. S. Bach: St. John Passion
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by Avie Records on Mar 3, 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Come to the River - An Early American Gathering
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on Sep 13, 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Monteverdi: Vespers of the Blessed Virgin (1610)
Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on Jan 1, 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Biber: Mystery (Rosary) Sonata: No. 9 in A Minor “The Carrying of the Cross”: I. Sonata
Alan Choo, Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on Feb 16, 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Biber: Mystery (Rosary) Sonata: No. 1 in D Minor “The Annunciation”: II. Aria (Allegro) - Variatio – Finale
Alan Choo, Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on Feb 2, 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo