Born in Liverpool, England, Harry Bicket studied at the Royal College of Music in London and at the University of Oxford, where he was an organ scholar at Christ Church. He is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2022 Queen’s Birthday Honors.
Internationally renowned, especially for his interpretation of baroque and classical repertoire, in 2007 Bicket was appointed artistic director of the English Concert, with which he has recently undertaken a project to record all of Handel’s works as an online resource for all.
He is music director of Santa Fe Opera, where productions he has led since 2013 have included Don Giovanni, Orfeo, Pelleas and Melisande, Carmen, The Marriage of Figaro, Fidelio, Romeo and Juliet, Alcina, Candide, and Così fan tutte. He returns this summer for The Marriage of Figaro.
This season, Bicket made his Opernhaus Zurich debut with Agrippina. With the English Concert, he leads a tour with Giulio Cesare across Europe and the United States alongside their regular London series and Messiah in Madrid and Barcelona.
He is a regular guest at the Metropolitan Opera, where recent productions have included Rodelinda, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, La clemenza di Tito, Giulio Cesare, Agrippina, and Così fan tutte. His many titles at the Lyric Opera of Chicago include Carmen and Rinaldo. At the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, he has conducted The Marriage of Figaro, Maometto II, and Hercules; at Houston Grand Opera, Figaro and Rusalka.
He made his Paris Opera debut in the 2023/24 season with Ariodante in a new production by Robert Carsen. At the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, he has led Rinaldo, Ariodante, Serse, Orlando, Orfeo and Euridice, The Barber of Seville, The Abduction from the Seraglio, and The Magic Flute. At the Orquesta del Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, he was awarded the Opera Critics Best Conductor Prize for Giulio Cesare, and he has also appeared at Theater an der Wien in Vienna and Opéra National de Bordeaux.
A favorite in the United Kingdom, he made his Glyndebourne Festival debut in 1996 in Peter Sellars’s landmark production of Theodora. In addition, he has made numerous appearances with the English National Opera; Scottish Opera; Welsh National Opera; and Opera North, where in 2023 he conducted David Pountney’s new work, Masque of Might, to the music of Henry Purcell. His Theodora at the Royal Opera House (London) in 2022 was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Production.
A prolific recording artist, Harry Bicket has made numerous recordings with the English Concert, most recently of Rodelinda, La resurrezione, and Serse, released in 2023 for Linn Records to great critical acclaim. His discography also includes five recordings with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, among them a collection of arias by Handel with Renée Fleming (Decca) and Ian Bostridge (EMI) and the cantata La Lucrezia with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (Avie), nominated for a Grammy Award.
April 2025
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.
