Jordi Savall is one of the most versatile and engaging musical personalities of his generation. For more than fifty years, he has devoted his career to reviving and interpreting the vast repertoire of early music, rescuing musical gems from obscurity and neglect for all to enjoy.

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Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI: Un Mar de Músicas

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

Ancient music’s most important value stems from its ability as a universal artistic language to transmit feelings, emotions and ancestral ideas that even today can enthrall the contemporary listener. With a repertoire that encompasses the period between the 10th and 18th centuries, Hespèrion XXI searches continuously for new points of union between the East and West, with a clear desire for integration and for the recovery of international musical heritage, especially that of the Mediterranean basin and with links
to the New World.

Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI

St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church

Musical time traveler, globe-trotting impresario, enterprising scholar and charismatic virtuoso: Jordi Savall is one of the most distinctive talents in the field of early music. Joined by his legendary instrumental and vocal ensembles, the prolific viol player explores the richness of the early Baroque era, highlighting the music of Monteverdi.

Jordi Savall — Monteverdi: A Baroque Revolution

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

A tireless researcher into early music, he interprets and performs the repertory both as a gambist and a conductor. This program, featuring his acclaimed ensemble Hespèrion XXI, captures the inventiveness of the early Baroque era, including works by Frescobaldi, Kapsberger, de’ Cavalieri, Falconiero and more. As the critic Allan Kozinn wrote in The New York Times, Savall’s vast concert and recording career can be described as “not simply a matter of revival, but of imaginative reanimation.”

Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Time traveler, globe-trotting adventurer, tireless scholar, virtuoso performer, visionary ensemble leader—Jordi Savall is a gift to us all. Joined by his legendary early-music ensemble Hespèrion XXI, the Cal Performances favorite explores 100 years of history through music in this fascinating new program. The artists travel between the courts and courtyards of Naples, Venice, Rome, Milan, and London, performing works by Emilio de’ Cavalieri, Vincenzo Ruffo, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Andrea Falconiero, and others. We may not know exactly where Savall will lead us as he mines the past for treasures that illuminate new connections between historic people and places, cultures, and movements, but we are always thrilled to come along for the ride. “At this stage of a varied and luminous career, each new risk taken by Mr. Savall—and each moment that he and his ensemble are playing—can still feel like a cultural experience worth the journey” (The New York Times).

Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI

First Congregational Church

Hespèrion XXI brings ancient and Baroque music to life under the direction of early-music legend Jordi Savall. In immensely entertaining programs that combine passion and creativity with world-class scholarship, they make timeless music utterly captivating for 21st-century audiences. Experience the inventiveness of the early Baroque era in works that span the late-16th century to the mid-17th century, including those by Frescobaldi, Kapsberger, de’ Cavalieri, Falconiero, and more.

Jordi Savall Hespèrion XXI

Carnegie Hall

“Wherever Jordi Savall wishes to travel, an audience will follow” (The New York Times)—that certainly sums up the loyalty and affection that Berkeley fans have developed for Savall’s supreme artistic intellect and instrumental virtuosity, forged over nearly three decades of annual visits. The Catalan viol virtuoso, conductor, and intrepid musical explorer is revered for his expansive programs that cross epochs and borders, using historically informed music performance to reveal diverse cultures, migrations, and movements. In recent years, his grand projects have explored the trans-Atlantic slave trade and musical exchanges between East and West and Christian and Arab, often returning closer to home to share lost treasures of the Iberian Baroque. Welcomed back to Berkeley again this season, Savall performs with his renown early-music period ensemble, Hespèrion XXI.

Hespèrion XXI

Apr 16, 2026

Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI: Un Mar de Músicas

Apr 15, 2025

Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI

Hespèrion XXI