Handel: Jephtha [Double Album]

Reference Recordings proudly presents great baroque composer George Frideric Handel’s final masterpiece: Jephtha, HWV 70!

Recorded live in September 2022 by multi-Grammy award winning engineer Christopher Willis, conducted by Dame Jane Glover, and performed by Chicago-based Music of the Baroque Chorus & Orchestra. This marks the first American commercial recording of Jephtha, Handel’s most sublime, emotionally intense work and an absolutely gorgeous baroque masterpiece.

Now in its fifth decade, Music of the Baroque is one of the leading professional ensembles in America devoted to 17th and 18th-century works. The Chicago Sun-Times writes, “Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra may be the big guys on the local classical music scene, but in terms of sheer quality of performance… Music of the Baroque inhabits the same stratosphere.”

Acclaimed British conductor Jane Glover, named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2021 New Year’s Honours, has been Music of the Baroque’s music director since 2002. Jane Glover has conducted all the major symphony and chamber orchestras in Britain, as well as orchestras in Europe, the United States, Asia, and Australia. She has worked with the period­ instrument orchestras Philharmonia Baroque and the Handel & Haydn Society. A Mozart specialist, she has conducted all the Mozart operas all over the world regularly, and her core operatic repertoire also includes Monteverdi, Handel, and Britten.

David Portillo, tenor (Jephtha)
Lauren Snouffer, soprano (Iphis)
Clara Osowski, mezzo­-soprano (Storgè)
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, countertenor (Hamor)
Neal Davies, bass­-baritone (Zebul)
Katelyn Lee, soprano (Angel)