Handel and Haydn Society Will Perform Bach, Beethoven, and More in 2024-25 Season

The best of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and more will come to life on stage as the Handel and Haydn Society announces the 210th season. Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen has crafted a schedule of concerts designed to inspire audiences, providing them with Baroque and Classical favorites, as well as H+H premieres that they may not be familiar with. The season will include eight concerts featuring six H+H premieres from composers like Michael Haydn and Francisco Lopez Capillas. Subscriptions, including the popular create-your-own packages, are available now at HandelandHaydn.org. 

“From Haydn to Beethoven, Mozart to Michael Haydn, H+H will connect the threads of history and inspiration that weave through musical history,” said Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen. “We have eight incredible concerts planned for the year ahead that will leave audiences inspired by the beautiful music, passionately performed by our orchestra and chorus.”  

The season will include several H+H premieres including a number of light and lively early Baroque gems from often overlooked Hispanic composers Antonio de Salazar, Francisco Lopez Capillas, and Juan de Araujo. All composed in Central and South America before Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn were even born, these pieces represent a unique sound of Baroque music in the New World. The season will also include the first H+H performances of the inspiring Requiem from Michael Haydn, and a beautiful Overture in F Major by Christoph Graupner. 

The 210th season will also feature a number of incredibly talented soloists including sopranos Lucy Crowe, Joélle Harvey, Brianna Robinson, and internationally renowned Jeanine De Bique; countertenor Reginald Mobley; tenor Nicholas Phan; baritone Sumner Thompson; bass-baritone Brandon Cedel; spoken word artist Reggie Gibson; and in-demand fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout. 

The season will begin with a pair of Requiems from the late 18th century. Michael Haydn’s masterpiece lays the groundwork for Mozart’s final work. Audiences will be able to hear the inspiration for Mozart’s Requiem in Haydn’s earlier work, setting the tone for a pair of awe-inspiring performances at Symphony Hall September 27 + 29, 2024. Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen will conduct. Mozart Requiem will feature soloists Lucy Crowe, soprano and Brandon Cedel, bass-baritone.

Celebrated Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique makes her H+H debut to kick off the holiday season with a can’t miss performance of Handel’s Messiah. Conducted by Jonathan Cohen, the November 29 + 30 and December 1 concerts at Symphony Hall will also include frequent H+H soloist Reginald Mobley, countertenor; Nicholas Phan, tenor; and Sumner Thompson, baritone. The three dates will mark H+H’s 171st consecutive year of performing Messiah.

Baroque Christmas offers several H+H premieres as Ruben Valenzuela, founder, artistic director and conductor of the early-music ensemble Bach Collegium San Diego, makes his H+H debut December 19 + 22 at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. H+H will pair J.S. Bach’s Cantata, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (“Now come, Saviour of the heathen”) with the work of one of his lesser known but important contemporary, Christoph Graupner (Overture in F Major). Graupner turned down a position in Leipzig and recommended Bach. He flourished in the role and spent the rest of his life in Leipzig. Then it is a treat for adventurous music lovers as Valenzuela guides H+H through a series of premieres from Hispanic composers Antonio de Salazar, Francisco Lopez Capillas, and Juan de Araujo. De Salazar’s Conceptio Gloriosae, Lopez Capillas’s Canticum Beatae Mariae Virginis: Magnificat à 8 and Cui Luna, Sol et omnia (“To him the moon, the sun, and all things”); and De Araujo’s Ay andar, a tocar, a cantar, a baylar (“Oh, walk, play, sing, dance”) offer a unique Baroque sound from the New World. 

A highlight of the season, H+H will once again perform the innovative Crossing the Deep, January 17 + 19, 2025 at NEC’s Jordan Hall. Co-created by H+H Resident Conductor Dr. Anthony Trecek-King and H+H Programming Consultant Reginald Mobley and premiered by H+H in 2023, Crossing the Deep explores the juxtapositions between sacred music by Handel and Negro spirituals by enslaved Africans in America using spoken word and moving performances by Mobley, soprano Brianna Robinson, spoken word artist Regie Gibson, and members of the H+H Orchestra and Chorus. Crossing the Deep is a guided dramatic musical journey exploring the shared wealth of Old World and New World period music. These same stories, particularly those of triumph of the ordinary over the powerful, were incorporated by enslaved Africans into a uniquely American genre, the Spiritual. 

“We knew this would be a special performance when Anthony and Reggie first proposed it years ago, but that was nothing compared to the incredible experience of seeing it live,” said David Snead, Philip and Marjorie Gerdine President and CEO of the Handel and Haydn Society. “The emotion and passion of the performers shines throughout this moving performance and we are overjoyed to be able to share this with a wider audience across Boston.”

Jonathan Cohen returns for a pair of concerts filled with tales of love gone wrong in Love, Handel  February 7 + 9 at NEC’s Jordan Hall. Soprano Joélle Harvey returns to join H+H for a pair of Handel Cantatas Il delirio amoroso (The Delirium of Love) and Tra le fiamme (In the Flames). H_H will also perform Handel’s Concerto Grosso in G Major.

H+H’s concertmaster Aisslinn Nosky and principal keyboardist Ian Watson will co-direct the dazzling, inventive, and inspired Bach Brandenburg ConcertosFebruary 20 + 22 at NEC’s Jordan Hall and February 21 + 23 at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. Bach’s treasury of instrumental music has become a tradition for H+H. 

March will bring another Classical connection as Jonathan Cohen pairs Haydn’s “Spring” from The Seasons, with Beethoven’s Mass in C Major March 28 + 30 at Symphony Hall. Audiences will experience the music as the composers intended and hear how Haydn’s work greatly influenced Beethoven. Haydn + Beethoven is set to be one of Cohen’s favorites of the season as he has greatly admired “Spring.”

The 210th season will conclude with three showstopping surprises in Beethoven, Mozart + The Bear, featuring award-winning fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout. Conducted by Cohen, the May 2 + 4 performances at Symphony Hall will include Beethoven’s beautiful Piano Concerto No. 4, Mozart’s Suite from Thamos, King of Egypt and Haydn’s delightful and joyful Symphony No. 82, The Bear. 

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