JOHN ELIOT GARDINER is one of the most versatile conductors of our time. Acknowledged as a key figure in the early music revival, he is the founder and artistic director of the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists, and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Alongside activities with his own ensembles, John Eliot Gardiner appears regularly as guest conductor with the most important European symphony orchestras, including the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics and the London Symphony Orchestra.

The extent of John Eliot Gardiner's repertoire is illustrated in over 250 recordings made for major European record companies (principally Deutsche Grammophon and Philips Classics), which have received numerous international awards. Over the years Gardiner has won more Gramophone awards than any other artist. Recordings include the six late masses by Haydn, and Santiago a Cappella, released on Emarcy to coincide with his Santiago Pilgrimage tour, which saw the Monteverdi Choir and John Eliot Gardiner perform in churches on the Pilgrim's route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain in the summer of 2004. Most recent releases include the Bach Cantatas, recorded during the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage tour 2000 and released on his own label Soli Deo Gloria (SDG).

In 1987 John Eliot Gardiner received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Lyon, and in 1996 he was nominated Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1992 he became an Honorary Fellow of both King's College, London, and the Royal Academy of Music. In the 1990 New Year Honours List he was made a CBE, and he was knighted in the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours List. In 2005 he became the first Englishman to be awarded the Bach Medal by the Bach Archiv and the City of Leipzig, and also received the prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize in Denmark.