(Boston December 4, 2020) The Handel and Haydn Society will celebrate the holiday season with a special performance of A Baroque Christmas. Led by H+H Principal Keyboard and Associate Conductor Ian Watson, members of the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra will perform works by Dall’Abaco, Charpentier, Biber, Torelli, and Telemann. The entire performance was recorded inside Boston’s beautiful St. Cecilia Parish.
“A Baroque Christmas serves up evocative music of the season by Baroque masters from Italy, France, and Germany, all active from the late 1600s to early 1700s,” said Handel and Haydn Society President and CEO David Snead. “Performed on the period instruments for which these five composers wrote, this evening will transport listeners to a Christmas long ago, when music like this was at the center of holiday celebrations in communities large and small, from Vienna and Rome to remote alpine villages.”
A Baroque Christmas will be available free, with a suggested donation of $10, through the Handel and Haydn Society website at handelandhaydn.org/streaming-concerts/. The concert will stream for registered listeners on Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 3:00 PM ET, and will be available for one month. H+H season subscribers and donors of $100 or more will receive additional content and early access to the performance two days before the public.
The holiday tradition will begin with a performance of the hymn, “Veni, veni Emmanuel.” Then viewers will be enchanted by Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco’s Concerto à più instrumenti in D Major, Op. 5, No 1. The holiday treat continues with Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s “A la venue de Noël” and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s Mystery Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Nativity, featuring a spellbinding performance by Aisslinn Nosky on violin. The orchestra will also perform Charpentier’s “Laissez paître vos bêtes,” Giuseppe Torelli’s Concerto Grosso in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 8, Christmas Concerto, and in closing, Georg Philip Telemann’s Sinfonia spirituosa.
In addition to Watson, A Baroque Christmas will include Boston based contralto Emily Marvosh, who will host the performance.
A Baroque Christmas will begin streaming Tuesday, December 22, 2020. Anyone wishing to view the concert is asked to register now through the Handel and Haydn Society website at handelandhaydn.org/concerts/baroque-christmas-streaming-concert/
The Handel and Haydn Society’s 2020–21 Season Performances include:
Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 December 15, 2020 Streaming online
Handel’s Messiah for Our Time December 20, 2020 Airing on GBH and streaming online
A Baroque Christmas December 22, 2020 Streaming online
The Magic of Handel TBD Streaming online
A broad offering of H+H digital content can be found on the Watch + Listen page of its website.
About the Handel and Haydn Society
Boston’s 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 206 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. The artistic director of the Handel and Haydn Society is Harry Christophers. Under Christophers’s leadership, H+H has released 13 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.
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