The HANDEL CONNECTION
Our first concert celebrates both the founding of Handel Choir and Handel’s influence on Mendelssohn. Before Handel Choir was established, the organizers sang Mendelssohn’s Elijah for a national conference held in Baltimore –– Mendelssohn’s music provided the springboard for the formation of the Handel Choir! Moreover, he was an avid student of Handel’s music. We are pleased to perform Mendelssohn’s Psalm 115 and Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich (Grant us peace) with Baltimore Chamber Orchestra in celebration of these Handel-Mendelssohn connections.
Every year since 1935 Handel Choir has performed Handel’s glorious Messiah. Once again we offer Messiah to our audiences, now in our unique-to-Baltimore performances with period instruments (instruments or replicas of instruments used during Handel’s day) and in two intimate venues, St. Ignatius Church and Church of the Redeemer.
Our third concert celebrates Handel’s influence on his 19th- and 20th-century English-speaking successors: British composers Britten, Vaughan Williams and Howells; and American composers Ives, Thompson and Copland. Plus we will perform a delightful selection of folk songs arranged by British and American composers.
Handel's hallmark –– the popularization of the English oratorio –– led to the founding of oratorio societies throughout Europe and America, including Handel Choir of Baltimore. We are proud, for our final event of the season, to join American Opera Theatre in presenting a staged version of Handel’s final Old Testament oratorio, Jephtha, with period instruments.
Music is an irrepressible expression of the human spirit. Handel certainly understood this. Join us for our 75th anniversary celebration of this amazing legacy.
All programs of the Handel Choir of Baltimore are made possible by support from the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, the Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences and the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts.