Music Director Academy of Ancient Music
Music Director Orquestra Barroca Casa da Musica
Laurence Cummings is one of Britain's most exciting and versatile exponents of historical performance both as a conductor and a harpsichord player. A noted authority on Handel, the Guardian has written of him “he now ranks as one of the composer’s best advocates in the world. Self-effacing on the podium, faithful above all to the score, he matches Handel’s energy and invention with unmistakable lyricism, generosity and dignity.”
He is Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music and Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música in Porto and has previously held positions as Artistic Director of the Internationale Händel-Festpiele Göttingen (2011 – 2021) and Musical Director of the London Handel Festival (1999 – 2024).
Frequently praised for his stylish and compelling performances in the opera house, his career has taken him across Europe, conducting new productions at houses including Royal Ballet and Opera Covent Garden (Jephtha, Berenice), Opernhaus Zurich (Belshazzar, King Arthur), Oper Frankfurt (Hercules, Giulio Cesare), Dutch National Opera (Idomeneo), Theater an der Wien (Saul), Gothenburg Opera (Orfeo ed Euridice, Giulio Cesare, Alcina and Idomeneo), Theater Basel (L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Halle Handel Festival (Agrippina), Théâtre du Châtelet Paris (Saul) and Opera de Lyon (Messiah). He has worked with directors including Barrie Koskie, David McVicar, Christoph Marthaler, Deborah Warner, Adele Thomas, Claus Guth, Oliver Mears, Sebastian Baumgarten, John Caird, Graham Vick and Peter Sellars. In the UK he has also appeared regularly for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera, Garsington Opera and Opera North.
Equally at home on the concert platform, he is regularly invited to conduct both period and modern instrument orchestras worldwide. In recent seasons this has included Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Netherlands Bach Society, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Tonnkunstler Orchester Grafenegg, Music of the Baroque Chicago, St Paul Chamber Orchestra Minneapolis, St Louis Symphony, and Handel and Haydn Society Boston.
His recordings include orchestral discs on BIS, Sony BMG, Harmonia Mundi and Chandos, as well as a series of live opera and concert performances recorded at the Göttingen International Handel Festival and released on Accent.
In addition to his commitments with Academy of Ancient Music and Orquestra Barroca Casa da Musica, highlights for 25/26 include productions of Guilio Cesare for Oper Frankfurt and Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria for Garsington Opera as well as appearances with Manchester Camerata, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
Monteverdi: Il ritorno d’Ulisse
Garsington / June 2026
Those purveyors of Baroque brilliance, the English Concert musicians – including a brace of theorbo – take their place on stage, following a promenade performance through Garsington’s teaming grasslands. As part of the cast, they are elevated from the pit, with Laurence Cummings conducting from the harpsichord.
The Telegraph, Claire Jackson
The remarkable English Concert have to manage with being spread out across the stage, with indefatigable music director Laurence Cummings at the keyboard(s) on the far stage right: how the players (and singers) maintained an all but immaculate unanimity suggested something akin to telepathy. Extraordinary.
OperaNow, Andrew Green
From their stage vantage point Laurence Cummings and The English Concert are equal colleagues in the drama. Towards the end they and the singers join together in a chorus for forgiveness from the wrathful Neptune that goes straight to the heart. This production represents the best of the summer festival operas so far.
Financial Times
From the moment the English Concert enters the theatre, having warmed the audience up with some pre-show marching around the Wormsley Estate playing Monteverdi’s Toccata, there’s a feeling of festive inclusivity. The playing is polished, with Cummings on chamber organ and colourful contributions from lirone, harp, a pair of theorbos and a trio of sackbuts.
The Guardian, Clive Paget
The English concert, led by Laurence Cummings from the harpsichord and organ, was an integral part of the production, onstage throughout and inseparable from the emotions being played out by the characters.
MusicOMH, Melanie Eskenazi
they still perform with alacrity under Laurence Cummings’s lively conducting from the combined harpsichord and organ.
Seen and Heard International, Curtis Rogers
That’s especially the case when it’s played at the level it was last night, by Laurence Cummings and The English Concert. The viola da gamba and pair of theorbos provided not just a platform but the heart of a whole sound world that transported you to a 17th-century court; cornets, sackbuts and medieval drums lent a festive air, recorders added vivid pastoral colour. Cummings drove the action forward with his and Christopher Bucknall’s harpsichords, or slowed it down from a chamber organ.
Bachtrack, David Karlin
Handel: Tamerlano
London Handel Festival / March 2026
musical standards are high, led by Laurence Cummings and the excellent Academy of Ancient Music.
The Guardian, Clive Paget
The academy of ancient music lead by Laurence Cummings was on top form. With some brisk tempo and ranges of baroque orchestral colour (flutes, oboes and recorders) it never felt flat and filled the space nicely.
Opera Now
Cummings and the AAM provided essentially a seventh character to proceedings, the strings tempestuous, galloping and balmy in turn, woodwinds bursting with character and a sensitive continuo department. Watching Cummings exuberantly hammering away at the harpsichord like Jerry Lee Lewis playing Great Balls of Fire was a special joy.
BachTrack, Mike Pullinger
the music itself is exquisitely realised under the directorship of Laurence Cummings… From the buoyant ceremony of the opening bars of the overture, which quickly evolves into a jagged, gossipy discourse between the strings and wind instruments, this is Handelian performance at its finest.
The Arts Desk
Bach: Brandenberg Concertos No 2,3 & 5 (CD, Recorded live)
Academy of Ancient Music / AAM Recordings / November 2025
With the redoubtable Laurence Cummings at the helm, the Academy of Ancient Music’s latest release captures Bach’s inexhaustible invention in stylish performances of terrific immediacy. ... In the Third, Cummings achieves extraordinary clarity of contrapuntal dialogue without sacrificing verve: the strings converse with conversational aplomb, the propulsive energy of live performance heightened by judicious dynamic shading. The improvised cadenza between movements is tasteful, brief, and wholly organic. In the Fifth Concerto, Cummings is fluent and theatrical, the lengthy harpsichord cadenza unfolding as a spontaneous act of creation rather than a product of studied eloquence. Compared with the AAM’s earlier Brandenburgs under Christopher Hogwood, these new performances trade textual novelty for visceral engagement; and where Richard Egarr’s 2009 set prizes intimacy and refinement, Cummings offers colour and vitality in abundance.
William Yeoman, Gramophone Magazine
Gluck: Orpheus and Eurydice
Edinburgh International Festival, SCO, Opera Australia / August 2025
Laurence Cummings leads the Scottish Chamber Orchestra through a bracing, finely judged account of the score, the Scottish Opera Chorus matches his intensity, singing with power and discipline.
Clive Paget, The Guardian
aided by the excellent Scottish Opera Chorus and Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Laurence Cummings’s direction
Richard Morrison, The Times
Both soloists’ buoyant agility was matched by the crisp, characterful playing of the SCO under conductor Laurence Cummings, who conjured a remarkable variety of colours from the ensemble
David Kettle, The Stage
the Scottish Chamber Orchestra play in the pit and, under Laurence Cummings’ direction, sound lithe and exciting
Simon Thompson, The Arts Desk
As is the SCO, working stylishly throughout under the swift-footed direction of conductor Laurence Cummings
Ken Walton, The Scotsman
Mozart: Idomeneo
Dutch National Opera, February 2025
British conductor Laurence Cummings and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra do justice to both the expressive sophistication and propulsive ferocity of Mozart's first great opera.
Jenny Camilleri, do Volkskrant
The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Laurence Cummings, is on strong form.
Jos Schuring, Scènes
Laurence Cummings serves the vocals through his understated orchestral direction. He lets the singers interpret their score with verve, and also act accordingly.
Pieter T’Jonck, Pzazz
The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra conducted by Brit Laurence Cummings sounds very neat.
Hugo Jager, Trouw
Handel: Giulio Cesare
Glyndebourne, June 2024
with a first-class cast, the Handelian Laurence Cummings conducting a work he knows inside out, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment excelling in the pit.
Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment played with joy and exemplary balance under the baton of that Handelian par excellence Laurence Cummings.
Mark Valencia, Opera Magazine
It was significant that on the first night the most ecstatic cheer was not for a singer but for the conductor Laurence Cummings, the undisputed king of Baroque opera, who steered a perfectly assured path through Handel’s ravishing musical landscape.
Michael Church, iNews
A whole chapter could be written on the collaborative glories from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under the vintage guidance of Laurence Cummings. Every introduction and rounding-off teem with personality; singing, perfectly phrasing violins are underpinned by a thunderous bass line where needed. This, too, is where proper rehearsal time pays off in the dialogues of instruments and voices.
David Nice, The Arts Desk
Thankfully, there was not a single weak link in Glyndebourne’s crack cast – all new to this production – who, under Laurence Cummings’ vivid direction, attacked their roles brilliantly, including plenty of da capo ornamentation.
Mark Pullinger, OperaNow
Aci by the River
London Handel Festival, April 2024
Throughout, Laurence Cummings’s musical direction provides the necessary élan to excavate the exquisite as well as the terrible from this troubling tale of single-minded desire.
Rachel Halliburton, The Times
Still, this detracts little from the vigorous playing of the London Handel Orchestra, conducted from the harpsichord by Laurence Cummings. This is Cummings’s 25th and final season as the LHF’s musical director, and he’s going out on a high.
Erica Jeal, The Guardian
Laurence Cummings, as ever, drew a sumptuous palette of Handelian colours from the players.
Boyd Tonkin, The Arts Desk
Meanwhile, under the inspiring direction of Laurence Cummings, the London Handel Orchestra demonstrates what a fabulous work this seldom-performed piece is.
Michael Church, iNews
Monteverdi’s L'Incoronazione di Poppea
Theater Basel, March 2024
Finally, let us highlight the excellent work accomplished by the instrumentalists of La Cetra, placed under the scrupulous direction of Laurence Cummings (who twice makes his beautiful tenor voice heard in subtle replies).
Bach Brandenburg Concertos
Academy of Ancient Music, January 2024
Its high point rightly came when Laurence Cummings, directing the whole show from the harpsichord, delivered the famous first-movement cadenza not as the feverish clatter of prestissimo passagework one usually hears but as one imagines Bach himself might have done — with pauses for emphasis and subtle variations in speed.
Richard Morrison, The Times
In The Realms Of Sorrow, London Handel Festival
Stone Nest / February 2023
Led by harpsichordist Laurence Cummings, the one-to-a-part orchestra was all grit, and even the more lyrical lines were extravagantly shaped. [Héloïse] Werner’s musical “dissolves” at the start and end of each cantata were breathtaking: unfamiliar harmonies spooled out of a Handelian cadence; the double bass became a percussion instrument amid guttural squawks from the oboes.
Flora Willson, The Guardian
It was part of the inspired musical innovation of the evening that the cantatas were interspersed with musical passages by Héloïse Werner, introducing a whispering atonality that subtly heightened the sense of subversion and tortured emotion. This helped the cantatas flow into one another to create a plaintive meditation on disappointed love; once Il delirio amoroso had finished we were plunged straight into Armida abbandonata HWV 105, which kicked off unforgettably with the lyrics “Ungrateful bastard – How dare you…”
Throughout, Cummings – the festival director – kept a tight rein on the evening’s stampede of emotions with his elegant direction from the harpsichord. There was much to savour in the musicians’ individual performances, not least Jonas Nordberg’s lively theorbo accompaniment and Rosie Moon’s vigorous bass, which at one point doubled up as a drum.
Rachael Halliburton, The Arts Desk
Laurence Cummings Repertoire
| ALMEIDA | La Guiditta |
|---|---|
| BACH | B Minor Mass |
| BRITTEN | St. Nicholas |
| CAVERLIERI | Rap. di Anima e di Corpo |
| ECCLES | The Judgement of Paris |
| GLUCK | Iphigénie en Tauride |
| HANDEL | Aci, Gallatea e Polifemo |
| MONTEVERDI | Incoronazione di Poppea |
| MOZART | Lucio Silla |
| PURCELL | King Arthur |
| RAMEAU | Dardanus |
| STRAVINSKY | The Rake's Progress |
| VIVALDI | L'incoronazione di Dario |
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