LHF 2027

Passion, Drama and Divinity

Five weeks of Handel-inspired performances across London from 18 February – 18 April 2027

Bringing together some of Handel’s most evocative, dramatic and visceral music with many of the world’s leading baroque ensembles and interpreters, the 2027 Festival promises to be an extraordinary celebration of a composer whose music continues to move, surprise and inspire audiences nearly three centuries after it was written.

It gives me great pleasure and delight to introduce to you the 2027 London Handel Festival: Passion, Drama and Divinity. Featuring some of Handel's most evocative and visceral works, performed by a number of the world's leading baroque ensembles and interpreters of Handel's music, 2027 promises to be another incredibly special year.

Gregory Batsleer Festival Director

At the heart of this year’s Festival, our Principal Ensemble in Residence, Arcangelo, and Artistic Advisor Jonathan Cohen return with three distinctive programmes. Their opening-night performance has become one of the most anticipated occasions of the Festival, and in 2027 they launch our season with Handel’s monumental Israel in Egypt. Arcangelo return later in the Festival for A Handelian Love Story, before the Arcangelo New Ensemblists make their Festival appearance at Stationers’ Hall.

We are also delighted to welcome back The English Concert for a rare concert performance of Handel’s 1727 opera Admeto, re di Tessaglia. And 2027 marks two particularly exciting Festival debuts: Il Pomo d’Oro, appearing with Maxim Emelyanychev and Ivan Podyomov, and the world-renowned Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, who bring their artistry to the Festival for the first time with Roman Vespers.

One of our ambitions at the London Handel Society is to celebrate Handel not only as one of the great composers, but as one of the great Londoners. This year his music will resonate in two remarkable venues appearing in the Festival for the first time: the newly renovated Barts Great Hall and the historic Stationers’ Hall, one of the City of London’s most distinctive spaces.

The Festival also offers many ways to experience Handel beyond the traditional concert setting. Our popular Come & Sing! returns with the London Handel Orchestra, this year exploring the Coronation Anthems, while a special family concert in partnership with Sinfonia Smith Square will introduce younger audiences to Handel’s music through Earth, Wind, Fire and Water Music. We will also welcome audiences to a new series of online seminars and, following the success of last year’s event, another exclusive members’ evening at Fidelio Café.

The Festival reaches its finale with the return of one of our most distinctive Handel Opera Studio productions: Aci, Galatea e Polifemo. Following its critically acclaimed previous run, Aci, by the River once again invites audiences to travel along the Thames by boat to Trinity Buoy Wharf for an immersive Handelian experience quite unlike any other. The production was described by The Telegraph as “exactly what opera needs”, and we are thrilled to bring it back as the culmination of the 2027 Festival.

Alongside these highlights, the Festival includes our much-loved Lunchtime at the Charterhouse series, the International Handel Singing Competition, and a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion at St George’s, Hanover Square – all part of a programme designed to illuminate Handel’s world from different perspectives.

The London Handel Society is built on the values of excellence, innovation and inclusion, and I am proud that the 2027 Festival reflects each of them. Whether you have been joining us for many years or are discovering the Festival for the first time, I hope you will find something in this programme to move, inspire and enrich you.

On behalf of everyone at the London Handel Society, I would also like to thank our members and supporters, whose generosity makes everything we do possible. Our purpose is to enrich lives through Handel’s music, and it is thanks to this extraordinary community of supporters that we can continue to share his music with audiences across London and beyond.

I hope you enjoy discovering the 2027 programme, and we very much look forward to welcoming you to the London Handel Festival next year.