Handel and Haydn Society Continues Historic Season With A Celebration of the British Baroque
February 2 + 4, 2024 at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall
Press performance is Friday, February 2 at 7:30 PM
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(Boston) The Handel and Haydn Society returns in February to continue its 209th season with a celebration of the British Baroque from world renowned violinist Rachel Podger at the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall February 2 + 4, 2024. The performances are one of seven exciting programs to close out the historic season, which is the first for new Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen. The season will also include masterpieces from Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, a return of Harry Christophers in his first appearance as Conductor Laureate, and H+H’s popular performances of the Brandenburg Concertos. Individual concert tickets are available now at HandelandHaydn.org.
“The first concerts of our blockbuster 2023-24 Season ended for me on a high note with triumphant Messiah performances in November,” said H+H Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen. “It was such a pleasure for me to perform this great Boston tradition and to connect with the audience and the wonderful musicians of H+H.”
“Looking ahead, I’m thrilled to see so many glorious and wonderful pieces in the calendar. Three titan works, Bach’s B Minor Mass, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Brahms’ Requiem await our audience in the New Year. It would be madness not to take the opportunity to hear them all! I’m also looking forward to being back in March at Jordan Hall for a pastoral and mischievous baroque program featuring Scarlatti and Handel’s “love duel” cantata.”
The February performances of British Baroque are a collaboration between Podger and Grammy-nominated countertenor Reginald Mobley who co-curated the program. The concerts will feature works of the British Baroque period include Purcell’s Suite from The Gordian Knot Untied as well as the goosebump-inducing songs “O Solitude” and “Here the Deities Approve,” Handel’s Sonata a 5 in B-flat Major and Concerto grosso in F Major, Op. 3, No. 4, and arias from Rinaldo and The Choice of Hercules. The repertoire will also include a suite of arrangements by Nicola Canzano of dances and songs from a long under-recognized voice in Ignatius Sancho, a composer who was enslaved at birth yet became the first Black man to vote in a British election.
Conductor Laureate Harry Christophers will return to H+H on February 23 + 25, 2024 at Symphony Hall. The performance features several H+H premieres including Hildegard von Bingen’s chants O filie Israhel and Flos campi as well as two of Raphaella Aleotti’s motets from Song of Songs: Vidi speciosam and Surge propera amica mea. Both Hildegard and Aleotti are incredibly talented female composers that were overlooked in their day.
Christophers has also selected Haydn’s delightful Symphony No. 49, La passione and two works by Mozart: Coronation Mass and Vesperae solennes de confessore. Soloists Joélle Harvey, soprano, Helen Charlston, mezzo-soprano, Aaron Sheehan, tenor, and Matthew Brook, bass-baritone, will join the H+H Orchestra and Chorus for the concert.
Guest conductor Raphaël Pichon and H+H take on Beethoven’s magnum opus Ninth Symphony in honor of the 200th anniversary of the 1824 Viennese premiere of the work. Pichon will deliver a fervently fresh take on the classic March 15 + 16 at Symphony Hall.
Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen returns for his final performances of the season on March 22 + 24 at NEC’s Jordan Hall for a beautiful program featuring Baroque Love Songs + Other Delights. Spring love will be in the air with this uniquely Baroque experience featuring works by Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti and one of Hanndel’s biggest rivals, Nicola Porpora. H+H will perform Scarlatti’s Cantatas, Piango sospiro e peno (I cry, sigh and suffer) and the pastoral Clori e Mirtillo; Porpora’s Cantatas Ecco che il primo arbore (Here is the first tree) and Il Ritiro, Lasciovi al fin grandezza (The Withdrawal, Leave you to the end of greatness), and Sinfonia da camera in G Minor; and Handel’s Sonata in B Minor and Cantata Amarilli vezzosa, Il Duello amoroso (Charming Amaryllis, The Love Duel) a mischievous tail of one shepherds attempt to win back a former love that ends in pain for them both. The performances will feature soprano Robin Johannsen and countertenor Christopher Lowrey.
Bach’s choral masterpiece B Minor Mass led by Masaaki Suzuki, founder and music director of the Bach Collegium Japan, will take place at Symphony Hall on April 5 + 7, 2024. From the first heart-wrenching chords Bach takes the audience through lush harmonies and intricate orchestral writing. Combined with H+H’s trademark historically informed style, this promises to be a Bach like the audience has never heard.
H+H will perform Brahms’s “A German Requiem” at Symphony Hall, April 19 + 21, 2024. Led by Bernard Labadie, principal conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and founder of the La Chapelle de Québec chorus, the performance will include the H+H premiere of the emotionally raw Begräbnisgesang (Funeral Song) and the spiritual Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem).
Aisslinn Nosky and Ian Watson will co-direct the dazzling, inventive, and inspired Bach Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1-6 on May 2 + 3 at Sanders Theatre and May 4 at NEC’s Jordan Hall. Bach’s treasury of instrumental music has become a tradition for H+H that is sure to sell out quickly.
The 2023-24 Season
British Baroque Feb 2 + 4, 2024 NEC’s Jordan Hall
Harry, Haydn + Mozart Feb 23 + 25, 2024 Symphony Hall
Beethoven 9 Mar 15 + 16, 2024 Symphony Hall
Baroque Love Songs + Other Delights Mar 22 + 24, 2024 NEC’s Jordan Hall
Bach B Minor Mass Apr 5 + 7, 2024 Symphony Hall
Brahms Requiem Apr 19 + 21, 2024 Symphony Hall
Brandenburg Concertos May 2 + 3 + 4, 2024 Sanders Theatre &
NEC’s Jordan Hall
Individual tickets and subscription packages are still available with access to the best seats at great savings and may be purchased by calling 617-262.1815 or visiting www.handelandhaydn.org.
About the Handel and Haydn Society
Boston’s Grammy-winning Handel and Haydn Society is dedicated to performing Baroque and Classical music with a freshness, a vitality, and a creativity that inspires all ages. H+H has been captivating audiences for 209 consecutive seasons (the most of any performing arts organization in the United States). Today, H+H’s Orchestra and Chorus delight more than 50,000 listeners annually with a nine-week subscription series at Boston Symphony Hall and other leading venues. Through the Karen S. and George D. Levy Education Program, H+H supports seven youth choirs of singers in grades 2-12 and provides thousands of complimentary tickets to students and communities throughout Boston, ensuring the joy of music is accessible to all. H+H’s numerous free community concerts include an annual commemoration of the original 1863 Emancipation Proclamation concert on December 31. H+H has released 16 CDs on the Coro label and has toured nationally and internationally. In all these ways, H+H fulfills its mission to inspire the intellect, touch the heart, elevate the soul, and connect us with our shared humanity through transformative experiences with Baroque and Classical music.
