It is all change at the London Handel Festival. As announced previously by festival director Gregory Batsleer, the festival has a new artistic advisor, Jonathan Cohen, whilst Cohen’s group Arcangelo becomes the principal ensemble in residence. But the London Handel Players are still in the frame, and they too have a new principal conductor, Richard Gowers.
Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo open the festival on 7 March 2025 at St George’s Church, Hanover Square with Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. Arcangelo are back on 12 March as Arcangelo’s New Ensemblists perform at the Foundling Museum, then on 14 March at St George’s, Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo are joined by Hungarian soprano Emőke Baráth in a programme celebrating great Handelian heroines.
Richard Gowers and the London Handel Orchestra, along with the London Handel Singers and the Choir of St. George’s, Hanover Square will be coming together on 22 March 2025 for a tercentenary celebration marking the foundation of St George’s Church, Hanover Square in 1725. The programme features Handel’s Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne and Dettingen Te Deum alongside the Organ Concerto in D Minor and soloists include Alexander Chance and Florian Störtz, winners of the International Handel Singing Competition in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
There is more oratorio when Peter Whelan and the Irish Baroque Orchestra make their festival debut with Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno on 19 March at St George’s with soloists Hilary Cronin, Helen Charlston, Jess Dandy and James Way, two of whom are recent winners of the International Handel Singing Competition. The singing competition returns in 2025 with the final being held at St George’s on 2 April with the finalist performing with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Violinist Bjarte Eike returns to the festival on 5 April at Middle Temple Hall where he performs with members of his ensemble Barokksolistene, in collaboration with members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and mezzo-soprano Katie Bray. Other visitors to the festival include violinist Charlotte Spruit,
keyboard player Steven Devine, The Vauxhall Band and Ensemble
Augelletti, who are performing at a Handel Supper Club.
The festival is collaborating with David Bates, La Nuova Musica and New English Ballet Theatre on a new stage production, Tales of Apollo and Hercules where director Thomas Guthrie and choreographer Valentino Zuccetti will be staging Handel’s early cantata, Apollo e Dafne and his rather later one-act oratorio, The Choice of Hercules.
The production takes place at in the Victorian grandeur of Shoreditch
Town Hall’s Music Hall.
As part of its 20th anniversary season,
experimental record label and promoter nonclassical returns to the
festival on 20 March for Arias Reimagined at Stone Nest in the
heart of London’s West End. The programme features a selection of
well-known Handel arias reimagined live by an exciting line up of
artists and performers, all of whom are renowned for their originality.
The festival is brought to a close on 10 April when Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company perform Handel’s Floridante a welcome chance to hear something of a Handelian rarity. Floridante was written in 1721, one of Handel’s early works written for the castrato Senesino.
Full details from the London Handel Festival’s website.
