Acclaimed British conductor Jane Glover, named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2021 New Year’s Honours, has been Chicago’s Music of the Baroque’s music director since 2002 and in 2025 becomes Principal Guest Conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony. She made her professional debut at the Wexford Festival in 1975, conducting her own edition of Cavalli’s LʼEritrea. She joined Glyndebourne in 1979 and was music director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera from 1981 until 1985. She was artistic director of the London Mozart Players from 1984 to 1991. From 2009 until 2016 she was Director of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music where she is now the Felix Mendelssohn Visiting Professor, and was Visiting Professor of Opera at the University of Oxford, her alma mater.
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. In recent seasons she has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, Montreal’s Orchestre Mètropolitain, and the Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, St. Louis, Sydney, Cincinnati, Oregon and Toronto symphony orchestras, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Bamberg Symphony, and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. She has worked with the period-instrument orchestras Philharmonia Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society. She has also made frequent appearances at the BBC Proms. In the 2024/2025 season she conducts the Baltimore Symphony and will lead the Mozart Requiem with Camerata Salzburg.
In demand on the international opera stage, in recent seasons she has conducted productions of The Magic Flute with New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Houston Grand Opera, Alcina with Washington Opera, L’Elisir d’amore at Houston Grand Opera, Medea for Opera Omaha, Così fan tutte for Lyric Opera of Kansas City, The Turn of the Screw, Jephtha and Lucio Silla in Bordeaux, The Rape of Lucretia, A Midsummer Nightʼs Dream, Cosí fan tutte, Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni at the Aspen Music Festival, Gluck’s Armide and Iphigenie en Aulide with Met Young Artists and Juilliard, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Orfeo ed Euridice (Gluck) in Lisbon, Albert Herring with Chicago Opera Theater and Minnesota Opera, Xerxes with Detroit Opera and the North American premiere of Ferdinando Paër’s Leonora with Chicago Opera Theater.
Jane Glover’s discography includes a series of Mozart and Haydn symphonies with the London Mozart Players and various recordings with the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, Trinity, Wall Street, and the BBC Singers. She is the author of the critically acclaimed books Mozart’s Women, Handel in London and has recently published Mozart in Italy. She holds a personal professorship at the University of London, is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music, an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, and the holder of several honorary degrees. In 2020 she was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Gamechanger Award for her work in breaking new ground for other female conductors.
November 2024
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
