The career of internationally-acclaimed harpsichordist and conductor Jory Vinikour has taken him to date from his native Chicago to performance venues on five continents. Following studies in Paris with Huguette Dreyfus and Kenneth Gilbert as a Fulbright scholar, garnering First Prizes in the Warsaw and Prague Spring Festival International Harpsichord Competitions catapulted him to public attention.
As a concert artist, Jory’s repertoire ranges from the Baroque works that are harpsichordists’ typical fare to masterworks of the Twentieth Century and music for harpsichord by Twenty-First-Century composers, several of whom have written works specially for him. He has worked with a number of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, including performances under the batons of Marek Janowski, Armin Jordan, Fabio Luisi, Marc Minkowski, John Nelson, and Constantine Orbelian.
Equally celebrated as a recital accompanist and vocal coach, Jory has shared stages with artists of the calibre of David Daniels, Vivica Genaux, Magdalena Kožená, Annick Massis, Anne Sofie von Otter, Dorothea Röschmann, and Rolando Villazón. Jory’s work as a continuo player and répétiteur has found him taking part in much-discussed productions in many of the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls.
Recent theatrical engagements include harpsichord continuo for Telemann’s Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Comacho with Chicago’s Haymarket Opera and musical preparation for Salzburger Festspiele’s August 2015 production of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride with Cecilia Bartoli, Rolando Villazón, and Christopher Maltman. His association with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble is documented on several critically-lauded recordings. Among many recordings of Baroque and Classical operatic repertory, his continuo playing is heard on Deutche Grammophon’s recordings of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte with Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin and will also distinguish the label’s forthcoming account of Die Zauberflöte, recorded in concert in 2018.
Alongside successful recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Toccatas, and Sonatas for flute and harpsichord, in the last of which he was partnered by Cleveland Orchestra principal flautist Joshua Smith, and Händel’s 1720 Suites for harpsichord, Jory’s recordings of the complete harpsichord works of Jean-Philippe Rameau and Toccatas, a disc of modern American music for harpsichord, received GRAMMY® nominations for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.
In September 2015, Jory took part in Great Lake Baroque's inaugural performance, and November 2015 found him in Norway for performances of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Bergen National Opera and a special ‘Symfonisk maraton’ concert in which he co-directed the Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester. In December 2015, he was heard in New York in a sold-out solo recital at Carnegie Hall.
In December 2017, Jory débuted with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducting and playing harpsichord in three performances of music by Arcangelo Corelli, Benedetto Marcello, Giuseppe Torelli, and Antonio Vivaldi featuring oboist Jelena Dirks and mandolinist Avi Avital.
Jory made his début as a conductor of opera with a production of Händel’s Agrippina for West Edge Opera in Berkeley, California, in August 2016. He followed this by leading Chicago Opera Theater’s production of Henry Purcell’s Fairy Queen in November 2016. Capitol Opera Richmond’s production of Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne took Jory to Virginia’s capital city to conduct performances in February and March 2017.
In June 2019, Jory celebrated the release of his Cedille Records recording of Twentieth-Century concerti for harpsichord and orchestra. His love for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is manifested in recordings of Sonatas for flute and harpsichord with Baroque flautist Stephen Schultz and Sonatas for violin and harpsichord with GLB recital partner Rachel Barton Pine. Forthcoming later in 2019 is the second installment in his traversal of chamber duets by Agostino Steffani on the Musica Omnia label. Jory’s Sono Luminus recording of Bach’s Partitas for solo harpsichord (BWV 825 - 830) was released to widespread praise in November 2016, expanding a discography that includes critically-acclaimed recordings of solo, chamber, and operatic repertories. Jory's Sono Luminus recordings Toccatas and The Complete Harpsichord Works of Rameau were nominated for GRAMMY® awards for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.
In addition to Great Lakes Baroque’s and Florentine Opera’s co-productions of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and the double bill of Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, recent engagements included Jory’s début with The Cleveland Orchestra, with which ensemble he performed Francis Poulenc’s Concert champêtre, and a return to Salzburg to lead Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne and Der Schauspieldirektor at the invitation of Rolando Villazón. In May 2019, he performed Poulenc’s Concert champêtre with Orchester Wiener Akademie and conductor Martin Haselböck in Vienna’s storied Musikverein.
To learn more about Jory's work and view a complete list of upcoming engagements, please visit his website.
