The Academy of Ancient Music has announced Laurence Cummings as its new music director, effective from the 2021/22 season.
Conductor and harpsichordist Laurence Cummings has previously performed with period instrument groups including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Les Arts Florissants, the Gabrieli Consort and The Sixteen. Until 2012, he was head of historical performance at the Royal Academy of Music and is renowned as an interpreter of the music of Handel. Since 1999, he has been music director of the London Handel Orchestra and the London Handel Festival, and remains a trustee of the Handel House Museum.
'I’m delighted to join with the Academy of Ancient Music to develop what the orchestra already has, to explore this wonderful repertoire that we all love with such a passion, and hopefully to reveal something new and fresh to the modern ear,' says Cummings.
Cummings will succeed Richard Egarr as music director, who will have held the role for 15 years.