Arcangelo's membership varies according to what music is being played, having ranged from four to as many as 50 musicians and singers. It was founded by cellist and conductor Jonathan Cohen in 2010; he remains the group's conductor as of the early 2020s. Arcangelo's musical flexibility has suited it especially well to festival appearances, and it has appeared at top British, Continental, and American festivals, including the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh Festival, and the Salzburg Festival.
Arcangelo's recordings and performances have mostly presented music from the Baroque and Classical periods, sometimes reaching as far forward as Beethoven. The group has recorded for Warner Classics, releasing an album of Mozart violin concertos with Vilde Frang in 2015. It has often collaborated with cutting-edge vocal and instrumental soloists, and its 2015 Lachrimae tour with soprano Anna Prohaska was a critical standout; Austria's Kurier newspaper raved that "with the angelic support of the ensemble Arcangelo, the ravishing soprano Anna Prohaska was able to musically represent the suffering of weeping as you would otherwise hardly imagine." In the 2016-2017 season, Arcangelo held a residency at London's Wigmore Hall, becoming the first Baroque ensemble to do so. Arcangelo has also recorded for Hyperion, Berlin Classics, and the revived Archiv label, among others. Three Bach Magnificats, the group's recording of Magnificats by J.S. Bach and two of his sons, appeared in 2018. The group returned from a coronavirus layoff with performances in Ghent, the Netherlands of Christmas-themed music by Heinrich Schütz and others. In 2021, Arcangelo was heard on two albums; one, on the Alpha label, featured Handel's Brockes-Passion, HWV 48, and, at the other end of the size scale, a second album presented Buxtehude's Trio Sonatas, Op. 2. ~ James Manheim, Rovi