Awarded the Polar Music Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music Award (1994),
the Kyoto Prize (2004) and the Leipzig Bach Medal (2007).
Austrian conductor.
Born to Eberhard de la Fontaine Count d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt, an engineer, and his wife Ladislaja Countess of Meran, a great-granddaughter of Habsburg Archduke Johann; he grew up with a younger brother, Philipp.
Father of a daughter, singer Elisabeth Von Magnus, and three sons, Philipp (b. 1955), Franziskus (b. 1961) and Eberhard (1957-1990).
He studied the cello at Vienna's Academy of Music, and was a member of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra for 17 years.
Founder and conductor of the Concentus Musicus Wien, an ensemble using period Baroque instruments.