Maestro Accused of Striking Singer Won’t Return to His Ensembles

John Eliot Gardiner, an eminent conductor who was accused of striking a singer in France last year, will not be returning to three renowned period ensembles he founded, the board overseeing them announced Wednesday.

Gardiner, 81, who is one of the world’s most celebrated conductors, will no longer lead the three groups: the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique.

The board of the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras, the nonprofit that oversees all three ensembles, said Wednesday that it had decided that Gardiner, who had been on leave since the incident in France last summer, “will not be returning to the organization.”

“The M.C.O. takes seriously its obligations to protect victims of abuse and assault and preventing any recurrence remains a priority for the organization,” the group said in a statement.

Gardiner sought to frame the decision as his own, saying in a later statement on Wednesday that it came after “a great deal of soul-searching since the deeply regrettable incident” in France.

He drew widespread criticism after he was accused of striking the singer, William Thomas, a rising bass from England, on the face last summer after a performance of the first two acts of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens” at the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André. Gardiner was apparently upset that Thomas had headed the wrong way off the podium at the concert, people at the festival said at the time.