Apollo’s Fire

Named for the ancient god of music, healing and the sun, Apollo’s Fire is a GRAMMY®-winning ensemble. The period-instrument orchestra was founded by award-winning harpsichordist and conductor Jeannette Sorrell. Dedicated to the baroque ideal that music should evoke the various Affekts or passions in the listeners, Apollo’s Fire brings to life the music of the past for audiences of today, with Passion. Period.

The Apollo’s Fire musicians are creative artists who share Sorrell’s passion for drama and rhetoric. In Europe and the UK, Apollo’s Fire has performed 6 tours including sold-out concerts at the BBC Proms in London, the Aldeburgh Festival (UK), Madrid’s Royal Theatre, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Bordeaux’s Grand Théàtre de l’Opéra; with concerts at Heidelberg Spring Festival, the Irish National Concert Hall (Dublin), the Irish National Opera House (Wexford), and venues in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, and Portugal. The ensemble has had many live radio broadcasts across Europe. AF’s London 2014 concert was chosen by the DAILY TELEGRAPH as one of the “Best 5 Classical Concerts of the Year,” with their critic writing, “An evening of superlative music-making… the group combines European stylishness with American entrepreneurialism.”

North American tour engagements include Carnegie Hall (2018 and 2022), the Tanglewood Festival (2015, 2017, and 2021), the Ravinia Festival (4 times), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY (numerous times), the Boston Early Music Festival series, the Library of Congress, the Aspen Music 2 Festival, Caramoor Festival, and major venues in Toronto, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2021, Apollo’s Singers made their debut with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Jeannette Sorrell, winning rave reviews – with a return engagement upcoming in 2023.

At home in Cleveland and Chicago, Apollo’s Fire frequently enjoys sold-out performances at its subscription series, which has drawn national attention for creative programming. With nearly 14 million views (total) of its YouTube videos, Apollo’s Fire is one of the most popular baroque orchestras on the worldwide internet. The ensemble also launched a “Worldwide Watch-at-Home Series” in 2020, bringing its subscription concerts into the homes of patrons around the
world.

Apollo’s Fire has released 30 commercial CDs and won a GRAMMY® award in 2019 for the album Songs of Orpheus with tenor Karim Sulayman. AF’s recordings of the Bach St John Passion, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and the Monteverdi Vespers have been chosen as best in the field by the Sunday Times of London (2020 and 2021) and BBC Magazine (2022). Eleven of the ensemble’s CD releases have become best-sellers on the classical Billboard chart, including Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Billboard Classical #2, 2021), the Monteverdi Vespers, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos & Harpsichord Concertos, a disc of Handel arias with soprano Amanda Forsythe titled “The Power of Love” (Billboard Classical #3, 2015), Songs of Orpheus (Billboard Classical #5, 2018), and five of Jeannette Sorrell’s multicultural programs: Come to the River – An Early American Gathering (Billboard Classical #9, 2011); Sacrum Mysterium – A Celtic Christmas Vespers (Billboard Classical #11, 2012); Sugarloaf Mountain – An Appalachian Gathering (Billboard Classical #5, 2015); Sephardic Journey –Wanderings of the Spanish Jews (Billboard World Music Chart #2 and Billboard Classical #5, 2016); and Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain (Billboard #3, 2018).