Jeannette Sorrell is an American musician and the founder and musical director of Apollo's Fire

Apollo's Fire

Apollo's Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra is a popular and critically acclaimed period-instrument ensemble specializing in early music based in Cleveland, Ohio. The ensemble unites a select pool of early music specialists from throughout North America and Europe...

, the Cleveland baroque orchestra.

She studied at the Tanglewood Music Festival

Tanglewood Music Festival

The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts....

 under Roger Norrington

Roger Norrington

Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington, CBE is a British conductor. He is the son of Sir Arthur Norrington and his brother is Humphrey Thomas Norrington....

 and Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, and served as a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. As a harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

ist, she studied with Gustav Leonhardt

Gustav Leonhardt

Gustav Leonhardt is a highly renowned Dutch keyboard player, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. Leonhardt has been a leading figure in the movement to perform music on period instruments...

 in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, and took First Prize and the Audience Choice Award in the 1991 Spivey International Harpsichord Competition. In 1992, she was a finalist for the Assistant Conductor post with the Cleveland Orchestra

Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...

, which led to the founding of Apollo’s Fire; since then she has enjoyed a busy career touring and recording with this ensemble.

Sorrell’s guest engagements throughout North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 include Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society (guest conductor and soloist), the Opera Theatre of St. Louis with the St. Louis Symphony, the Akron Symphony, Arizona Opera

Arizona Opera

Arizona Opera is an opera company which operates in both Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.Arizona Opera was established in 1971 as the Tucson Opera Company, under founding general director James P. Sullivan, and presented its first production, of Rossini's The Barber of Seville, in 1972. By 1976 the...

, and the Colorado Music Festival

Colorado Music Festival

The Colorado Music Festival is a classical music festival in Boulder, Colorado. It was founded in 1976 by the Vienna-born conductor and violinist, Giora Bernstein and presents an annual summer season of concerts in Boulder's Chautauqua Auditorium performed by the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra...

 in Boulder, Colorado

Boulder, Colorado

Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...

. As a keyboard artist she has performed throughout North America, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, including engagements with the eminent Cambridge Society for Early Music in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 (America’s premier early music presenter), and the Cleveland Orchestra (J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion). She has been featured on several live performance-interviews on National Public Radio. Sorrell is dedicated to guiding the next generation of musicians, and has led many projects at the Oberlin Conservatory (of which she is an alumna) including the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra and Oberlin Opera Theatre, as well as an international Bach project with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. In 2009-2010 she conducted the “Mozart Birthday Concert” at the Cleveland Institute of Music

Cleveland Institute of Music

The Cleveland Institute of Music is an independent music conservatory located in the University Circle district of Cleveland, Ohio, United States and is overseen by president Joel Smirnoff and Adrian Daly, dean....

.

Sorrell is the winner of the 1994 Erwin Bodky Award in early music, the 1995 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and a special citation from the Mayor of Cleveland. She holds an honorary doctorate from Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...

 and an Artist Diploma from the Oberlin Conservatory. Her thirteen commercial recordings include Monteverdi’s Vespers and the complete Brandenburg Concerti.