JORY VINIKOUR, HARPSICHORDIST, CONDUCTOR

Twice nominated for a Grammy as a harpsichord soloist and internationally known for concerto appearances with leading orchestras as well as concert partnerships with leading singers, Mr. Vinikour spent more than twenty years playing continuo for opera bands in Paris, Zurich, Salzburg, Aix...and doing so with an unusual distinction.

"When were you last at an opera where a harpsichordist got a standing ovation?" asked Andrew Patner of the Chicago Sun Times after a Handel Rinaldo at the Chicago Lyric. "Perhaps the genius performer Jory Vinikour... gets this all the time. It was new to me and delightful".

After that, directing from the keyboard was a natural progression. Mr Vinikour studied conducting in New York with the great Russian pedagogue Vladimir Kin, and launched his new career in 2016 with Handel's Agrippina for West Edge Opera, Berkeley - swiftly followed by Purcell's Fairy Queen for Chicago Opera Theater ("expertly" conducted said the Chicago Tribune) and a double-bill of Venus and Adonis/Dido and Aeneas for Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera.

He returned to Milwaukee in 2019 for L'Incoronazione di Poppea. And the same year he conducted Bastien und Bastienne/Der Schauspieldirektor in the Mozartwoche, Salzburg, at the invitation of Rolando Villazon with whom he has worked as an accompanist for some ten years.

Outside opera Mr Vinikour has directed performances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Musica Angelica, Bergen Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Camerata Bariloche in Buenos Aires, and concerts in his own Great Lakes Baroque music series. There has been a Pergolesi Stabat Mater for French TV, and a European tour with David Daniels and Le Point du Jour, playing the Concertgebouw, London Barbican and Berlin Philharmonie.

Born in Chicago, Mr Vinikour studied on a Fulbright scholarship in Paris and won First Prize in the 1993 Warsaw International Harpsichord Competition. His career as a soloist has involved collaborations with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Wiener Akademie, French Radio Orchestra, the Suisse Romande Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Netherlands, Moscow and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras, and most recently (in a performance of Poulenc's Concert Champetre) the Cleveland Orchestra. As an accompanist he performs with the likes of Magdalena Kozena, Anne Sofie von Otter and Dorothea Roschmann. And his work in the recording studio has been showered with accolades, from Grammy nominations for his CDs of Rameau (2013) and modern American keyboard repertoire (2015) to an American Record Guide 'finest on disc' for his Handel harpsichord suites. His Goldberg Variations release for Delos was ranked by the Chicago Tribune among its top ten classical CDs of the year.

After sold out performances conducting Handel’s Messiah for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra this past December, and will conduct the same work for the Seattle Symphony late this year, and conducts the gala concert for the Karlsruhe Handel Festival.

Above all, Jory Vinikour is a remarkable communicator who engages with his audience, through formal music-making and – where it's appropriate – informal dialogue. “He makes a concert an experience”, said the Christian Science Monitor, “in the very best sense of the word'. The ultimate objective.