Since taking its current ensemble form in the early 1980s, Canada's Tafelmusik (in full, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra) has been among North America's foremost groups specializing in historically informed performances of Baroque music. The group has been unusually prolific on recordings, issuing more than 75 albums whose success has been international in scope.

In its original incarnation in the late 1970s, Tafelmusik was a four-person chamber music group. It took its name from a collection of music by Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann whose title meant "table music," indicating a collection of pieces suitable for dinners and banquets. Under the leadership of violinist Jeanne Lamon, who remained Tafelmusik's music director until 2014, the group grew into a small orchestra; in the 1980s there were 11 players, and around 2000 the membership stabilized at 19. An associated Tafelmusik Chamber Choir was established in 1981. Based in Toronto, and specifically at Trinity St. Paul's Church, Tafelmusik has played period instruments and performed according to what is known of Baroque-era performance practices. The group's development coincided with a rise in the popularity of Baroque music, and by 2000 the group was playing concerts almost weekly in Canada, North America, and Europe. In the face of competition from top European Baroque orchestras, Tafelmusik has toured repeatedly in Britain, Germany, France, and other European countries. In the 1990s and 2000s, the group was ensemble-in-residence at Germany's Klang und Raum Festival, and tours to East Asia were added to its calendar. Lamon retired as music director in 2014 and as chief artistic advisor in 2017, but has continued to perform with the group. In 2017, violinist Elia Citterio became the group's new music director. That year, Tafelmusik performed at the inauguration of Julie Payette as Canada's new governor-general; Payette had been a member of the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir.

Tafelmusik is especially notable for its large catalog of more than 75 recordings, many of which have been released on labels such as Harmonia Mundi and Sony Classical. In recent years, the group has operated its own Tafelmusik Media label. Tafelmusik's repertory has expanded forward to the music of Beethoven and his contemporaries, but it has remained predominantly centered on the Baroque. In 2019, Tafelmusik released the album Vivaldi con Amore. ~ James Manheim

Bruno Weil is among the more important German conductors of his generation. He has been most closely associated with the symphonies of Haydn, as well as with opera and choral works from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He has made numerous recordings for Sony Classics and BMG conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and two period-instrument ensembles, the Canadian group Tafelmusik and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. His repertory includes Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Wagner, and a spate of others, but Weil has shown little interest in 20th century or contemporary music.

Weil was born in the village of Hahnstaetten, Germany, on November 24, 1949. He was a student of Hans Swarowsky (1972-1974) and Franco Ferrara (1975) and managed to win prizes in several important conducting competitions in his early twenties. After serving a short stint in the mid-'70s as kapellmeister at the Wiesbaden Opera House, he worked in the same capacity at the Brunswick Opera House from 1977 to 1981. In that latter year he was named general music director for the city of Augsburg.

Perhaps the event that elevated Weil to international notice was his replacement of Herbert von Karajan at the 1988 Salzburg Festival, where he led an acclaimed performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The following year he left his Augsburg post, and soon turned out his first recordings for Sony Classics: Mozart: Overtures, Schubert Symphonies 5 & 6, and, most importantly, Mozart's Don Giovanni were all released in 1991, generally to critical praise. He debuted at the 1992 Glyndebourne Festival with Mozart's Così fan tutte.

In 1994 Weil was appointed general music director for the city of Duisburg. He also began making regular guest-conducting appearances with some of the world's leading orchestras, including those in Boston, Los Angeles, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo, and Sydney. In 2000 he led a critically acclaimed production of Mozart's Magic Flute at the Salzburg Mozartwoche. The following year he took on a professorship at the Munich State Academy for Music and Theater. Weil resigned his Duisberg post in 2002 but remained busy guest-conducting (he debuted in San Francisco and Indianapolis in the 2003-2004 season) and in the recording studio. Among his later recordings are a pair of 2005 releases, Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 (Analekta), and Wagner's The Flying Dutchman (RCA), with Cappella Coloniensis, a period-instrument ensemble he has led since 1997. He has also taught conducting at the State Academy of Music for Theater in Munich.