Handel and Haydn Society to Celebrate the Season with A BAROQUE CHRISTMAS

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/