"The audience’s enthusiastic response to Glover’s warm and skillful direction on the podium was like that of a rock star. Indeed, in the classical music world, she is a star."
Cincinnati Business Courier, January 2024
Latest Reviews
Handel Jephtha (2022 recording), Music of the Baroque (March 2025)
"There was a time when admirers of Handel would find it difficult to access anything other than a few oratorios and operas; Messiah reigned supreme. Things have changed in recent years as this splendid performance of the composer’s dramatic Jephtha proves – and apart from anything else, the chance to hear the piece under Jane Glover is an opportunity is not be missed; no-one has more authority than the legendary Glover in bringing out every aspect of Handel’s glorious score, particularly with the top-notch batch of soloists she is working with here. In a recording that is both lucid and wide-ranging, Jephtha has never sounded better."
Handel Jephtha (2022 recording), Music of the Baroque (February 2025)
"It is a surprise and pleasure to see this new recording by the ever-irrepressible Jane Glover and her longtime association with the Music of the Baroque Orchestra.
The orchestra is superb, with rich tone and sharp contrasts, guided by Glover’s deep and long-lived experience in this music. But what thrilled me the most are the sonics, often substandard in concert recordings, here well-nigh perfect in presentation and warmth. Typical fine Reference Recordings production, complete with libretto. If you don’t know Jephtha, you are missing something. This is a good place to start."
'Glover Conducts English Classics', Chicgo Symphony Orchestra (February 2025)
"Glover was a spirited and assured podium presence as she led a lightish, Essentially English program of works for chamber orchestra.
Glover and the ensemble provided Chen with attentive, equally sensitive accompaniment, the British conductor giving her room to phrase freely and pointing up the contrast of the folk-like middle section."
Handel Messiah, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, NY (December 2024)
"The English conductor Jane Glover, working from memory, led a supple and breezy performance that stood out for her intelligent phrasing of the choral numbers, during which she patiently allowed textures to build and swell before letting them crest on a carefully chosen word in the text."
"Trinity’s contingent of eight adult female sopranos under Dame Jane Glover’s dynamic leadership soared thrillingly."
Bach Christmas Oratorio, Music of the Baroque (November 2024)
"...the stylish and idiomatic performance by Music of the Baroque, led by Dame Jane Glover Monday night at Symphony Center, provided a nearly ideal rendering of this rich and fascinating work.
...With masterful pacing, MOB’s music director kept things moving with fleet tempos that never seemed rushed; recitatives led naturally into the slower arias and back again with ease and a sense of inevitability... Glover’s balancing was equally skilful throughout the oratorio’s 64 individual movement."
Handel Jephtha (2022 recording), Music of the Baroque (November 2024)
"This new recording of Handel’s last oratorio, Jephtha, is sourced from a live performance given in Chicago in September 2022 by Music of the Baroque under the direction of the renowned Handel and Mozart expert, Jane Glover. The performance uses modern instruments, but is performed in a highly historically-aware and authentic manner, and the contributions by all of the main vocalists, as well as the chorus and the orchestra itself, are uniformly superb. Glover’s clear-eyed yet impassioned interpretation of the score is completely convincing, and this new recording is compelling, clearly benefitting from the bond the conductor has formed with many of these performers over her more than two decades as music director of Music of the Baroque...
...For anyone familiar with Reference Recordings, you will not be disappointed, as the same exceptional standards that have been universally recognized in so many of their previous releases are clearly also in evidence here. The recording is present and vibrant, as well as offering a wide and deep soundstage, and the balance of the harpsichord—so often disappointingly either too loud or too soft—seems particularly right here. All of the solo voices are placed forward in the balance, but not excessively so, and the recording retains that special sort of frisson that the best live performances so often convey...This is an exciting new release from Reference Recordings that presents as compelling and dramatic a performance of Handel’s Jephtha as I have heard. Urgently recommended."
"It’s testimony to Glover’s skill and scholarship that you scarcely notice the cuts in a drama that drives us with steady momentum from Jephtha’s rash vow to sacrifice the first thing he lays eyes upon to the brink-of-execution angelic intervention to save his daughter Iphis.
This is emphatically English Handel; no Italianate excesses here, just lean precision and beautiful mellowness of tone.
...Glover’s live performance has a lot going for it."
Bach, Montgomery, Haydn (November 2024)
"...Urged on by Glover, the chamber ensemble made the passages grow and glow. The ornamentation from the horns sparked, and it was wonderful to hear the harpsichord (another advantage of the acoustical enhancement of the hall). It was top notch Handel from beginning to end...the final movement swept everyone into a spirted and grand finale. That caused concertgoers to erupt with applause, and after Glover returned to the podium a third time, Kwak and the orchestra delayed standing so that the conductor could enjoy the applause – a real tribute to Glover’s artistry..."
Ravel, Mozart, Britten, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (October 2024)
"...She and the orchestra made the whole performance a marvel of colors and textures delicately nuanced and fastidiously balanced.
Phrase after phrase was lovingly tapered, principal oboist Jennifer Corning spinning out particularly eloquent lines. But there was plenty of flash and sparkle when called for. Concluding the concert, Mozart’s Paris Symphony (in D major, K. 297/300a) was no less suavely shaped and sprung. No crystal-and-lace Mozart, though, it was red-blooded stuff that could flex a bit of muscle when appropriate, but never too much..."
Mozart Don Giovanni, Cincinnati Opera (October 2024)
"In the orchestra pit, Jane Glover’s nuanced and intelligent interpretation of Mozart’s glorious score was sheer joy. Her tempos breathed, and phrasing was lyrical and warm, with plenty of drive in the dramatic moments."
Opera
Paër Leonora, Chicago Opera Theater (October 2024)
"... a winning resuscitation ... stylishly conducted by Jane Glover, returning to a company she had served with great distinction during the Brian Dickie era.... Glover had never conducted the Paer previous to these performances, but you would never have guessed as much from the idiomatic authority of her conducting (at the fortepiano), or the clarity, crispness and balance she secured from the orchestra."
Opera
"Presiding over all was Dame Jane Glover in the pit. One rarely gets to hear Music of the Baroque’s music director in such unfamiliar repertoire as this. The British conductor led a spirited, well-prepared performance, drawing out the details and slender charms of Paër’s score while keeping the proceedings on the move. Glover’s balancing was scrupulous, not only between singers and orchestra but in keeping vocal lines distinct in the many ensembles that abound in Leonora —trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and even a brief septet... under Glover the winds brought out Paër’s lively writing and concertmaster Isabella Lippi provided a graceful obbligato violin solo in Florestan’s aria."
Haydn Creation, Music of the Baroque (September 2024)
"Glover led the MOB forces Tuesday night in a dynamic, richly colored and often exhilarating account of Haydn’s oratorio.
Under Glover’s vital, attentive direction not a single bar felt slack or routine, nor any scoring detail overlooked. The “Chaos” opening unfolded patiently with cumulative impact, segueing from atmospheric mystery to a blazing creation of light with the chorus in full cry. Haydn’s originality consistently came through with bracing strength and character as did the essential spiritual warmth of the religious composer’s inspiration.
The musicians delivered Haydn’s remarkable score with striking commitment, color and nuance, responding to Glover’s advocacy by bringing out all the painterly felicities of Haydn’s writing."
Mozart Don Giovanni, Houston Grand Opera (June 2024)
"Jane Glover conducted an elegantly sprightly reading of Mozart's score, accompanied recitatives on the fortepiano, and commanded a cast that sang well..."
Opera
Mozart Don Giovanni, Cincinnati Opera (June 2024)
"In the opera pit, there could have been no finer interpreter of Mozart’s score than Dame Jane Glover, who led a nuanced and engaging performance with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The conductor and Mozart scholar set the tone magnificently in the Overture, deftly balancing the dramatic music of the scene of the “stone statue” with the cheerful, sunny music that segues into Act I.
Despite the story of a sexual predator and murderer, Mozart penned some of the most glorious music ever written. The Cincinnati Symphony performed it superbly. There were many joys to be had in Glover’s effective leadership of this musical score. Her tempos breathed, and the orchestra’s phrasing was lyrical and warm, with plenty of drive in the dramatic moments."
Mozart Symphonies, New York Philharmonic (May 2024)
"The Philharmonic had never performed the symphony before Wednesday, and under Glover’s baton it flowed with the same nimble, unaffected naturalness as the rest of the program: four pieces, including three Mozart symphonies, from the final three decades of the 18th century. Glover’s tempos throughout the concert were sensible and unexaggerated, with ample room to breathe but no dragging, and the playing was lovely."
"The second half of the concert opened with Symphony No. 13 in F major, K.112 composed in 1771. It may not be Mozart at his weightiest musically or emotionally, but conductor and orchestra made a charming case for the youthful endeavor in its first performance by the
NY Phil. The opening Allegro was exciting and vibrant, a perfect complement to the lightness and delicacy of the Andante. Glover led the strings in a robust reading of the Menuetto, which was enlivened by the incisive bowing of the strings."
Mozart Don Giovanni, Houston Grand Opera (April 2024)
"Of course, the most important returnee was Mozart’s music and from the first notes as directed by the UK’s acclaimed Dame Jane Glover it was impossible not to be swept up in it and Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto filled with passion, tragedy and take-a-breath comic moments."
Bach St John Passion, Music of the Baroque (March 2024)
"MOB’s music director is an experienced hand at these complex scores, and Glover’s performances of this repertoire have become deeper and more eloquent over her two decades in Chicago, plumbing the spirituality as much as the narrative drama. With some remarkable choral singing and a largely excellent lineup of soloists, this powerful and affecting St. John Passion was in the same sturdy tradition of Glover’s past Bach performances."
Mozart Symphonies, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (January 2024)
"The audience’s enthusiastic response to Glover’s warm and skillful direction on the podium was like that of a rock star. Indeed, in the classical music world, she is a star.
Among her many gifts, she is a renowned Mozart specialist, scholar and author. She has been music director of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque since 2002. Her distinguished work for decades on both sides of the Atlantic continues to impress on both symphony and opera stages.
Most of all, Glover’s obvious joy in leading Mozart’s music clearly communicated to listeners in Music Hall. Each work engaged the ear with stylish interpretation as well as with the profound humanity that colors Mozart’s music.
Glover led without a score, getting directly into the heart of each moment of this miraculous music. The musicians responded with pristine playing. Following lengthy ovations by the audience, the orchestra awarded Glover her own bow."