Handel and Haydn Society Announces its 2008-2009 Season
“A season of Celebration”
Featuring a celebration of important musical anniversaries; outstanding roster of international conductors and soloists; focus on composers Handel and Haydn and their enduring influence; free, outdoor performance of Haydn’s masterwork, The Creation, on Boston’s Esplanade
February 12, 2008 (Boston, MA) —The Handel and Haydn Society has announced its 2008-2009 season, a season in which several important musical anniversaries converge. Befitting the occasion, the Society presents a season-long celebration and tribute to composers Henry Purcell (1659-1695), George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 -1809), and Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). Running throughout is an exploration of the Society’s namesakes, Handel and Haydn, and their enduring musical and cultural influence.
The Society’s Artistic Advisor Sir Roger Norrington and Principal Conductor Grant Llewellyn are joined by a lineup of renowned conductors who have shaped the field of historically informed performance. They will lead the Handel and Haydn period orchestra and chorus in a wide variety of well-known and rarely-heard Baroque and Classical masterworks. In keeping with the Society’s choral tradition, the 2008-09 season also highlights these composers’ finest choral works, from Handel’s Coronation Anthems and Messiah (in the Society’s 155th annual performance), to Haydn’s apotheosis, The Creation.
Highlights of the Season
The 2008-09 season opens with the return of Harry Christophers, director of The Sixteen, who has led two programs with the Society in the 2007-08 season. He will bring his expertise in choral and Baroque repertoire to a program of Handel’s glorious Coronation Anthems, which Handel and Haydn Society performed at its first-ever public concert in 1818, and which it performed in Boston in honor of the 1976 bicentennial celebration.
The brilliance of Handel is further celebrated in the Society’s 155th annual performances of Messiah, conducted by opera conductor Paul Daniel and featuring four soloists well-known to Boston audiences: soprano Kendra Colton, mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy, tenor Brian Stucki and baritone Brett Polegato. It is also displayed in a Baroque instrumental program featuring Handel’s famed Concerto Grosso in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 6, led by young Canadian conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni. In addition, Grant Llewellyn conducts the world premiere of “Fanfare for Voices” by Thomas Vignieri, a choral tribute to Handel commissioned by the Society for the Handel anniversary. The Society presents another important tribute in late February, this time to Purcell, with innovative Baroque specialist Paul Goodwin, who takes a journey through Europe with a theatrical performance centered on Purcell’s famous masque from Dioclesian.
During the 2008-09 season, Handel and Haydn Society pays tribute to Franz Joseph Haydn upon the 200th anniversary of his death, and explores the extraordinary influence he had on his contemporaries and later generations of composers. Richard Egarr, music director of the Academy of Ancient Music and a leading figure in period performance, directs a November program of works by Mozart and Beethoven that echo Haydn’s musical legacy.
Sir Roger Norrington leads two distinctive programs paying homage to Haydn. In January 2009, he conducts a concert performance of Haydn’s rarely-heard, glorious opera L’anima del filosofo (telling the story of Orfeo and Euridice). Never before performed at Symphony Hall, this work features moving arias, which will be performed by some of today’s finest young singers: soprano Sarah Coburn, tenor Andrew Kennedy, and baritone Christopher Maltman, In April, Norrington leads “Dr. Haydn’s London Academy,” a program highlighting the range of compositions, from intimate vocal works to major symphonies, that Haydn presented during his famed career in London. Norrington and the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra will be joined by Canadian soprano Nathalie Paulin, who made a radiant debut with the Society in January 2008.
The season culminates on May 31, 2009, with an extraordinary event: a free, outdoor performance of Haydn’s The Creation, with Grant Llewellyn leading the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra and chorus, and renowned soloists Elizabeth Watts, soprano; Shawn Mathey, tenor; and Eric Owens, bass. The Handel and Haydn Society gave the American premiere of this masterpiece in 1818; in recognition of Haydn’s history and of its own, the Society offers this concert as a gift to the city of Boston. The performance will be part of a worldwide event, in which selected orchestras all over the world will perform The Creation on the same day, the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death.
This outdoor concert will also cap off a yearlong series of performances in open spaces that the Society will give in partnership with other cultural and community organizations. Details of community and outreach events planned for the 2009 Celebration will be announced late August 2008.
“The Best of the Old and the New”
In keeping with the Society’s mission, since 1815, of presenting “the best of the old and the new,” the season also features the Society debuts of such rising stars in the conducting world as Paul Goodwin and Jean-Marie Zeitouni; and a mix of established and emerging soloists. Solo debuts include soprano Gillian Keith and the Russian violinist Ilya Gringolts, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto on period violin. Boston-based cellist Phoebe Carrai, a former member of the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra now enjoying a solo career, returns as featured artist in the April 2009 Baroque program led by Zeitouni.
The Society’s renowned chorus is prominently featured throughout the season, a reflection of the Society’s vocal tradition; also, members of the chorus will perform solo roles in Purcell’s The Masque from Dioclesian; Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo (Orfeo); and a program of Bach’s Christmas music, including Magnificat and a selection of cantatas, led by Handel and Haydn Chorusmaster and Associate Conductor John Finney.
About the Handel and Haydn Society
A chorus and period-instrument orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society is an internationally recognized leader in the field of historically informed performance, using instruments and techniques available to composers in their day. Founded in 1815, the Society is America’s oldest continuously performing arts organization and celebrates its 194th season in 2008-09. The Society’s artistic team includes Artistic Advisor Sir Roger Norrington, Principal Conductor Grant Llewellyn, and Conductor Laureate Christopher Hogwood. Now in its 23rd year, Handel and Haydn’s award-winning Educational Outreach Program annually provides more than 10,000 elementary and high school students with opportunities to learn about and perform classical music. The Vocal Apprenticeship Program identifies and nurtures young vocal talent among Greater-Boston-area children through its four youth choirs and the High School Soloists Program.
Subscription Information
Now on sale, subscriptions ($45-$527) may be purchased through the Handel and Haydn Box Office: 1) by phone at 617-266-3605, 2) online at www.handelandhaydn.org, or 3) in person at the Handel and Haydn office, Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston (M-F 10am-6pm). Single tickets go on sale in September 2008.
