Handel in Seattle: The American Handel Festival 2011

See our big Handel Festival page.  This is a very large collaboration among many, many Seattle arts organizations, and Sweet Bird Classics is managing the entire project.  We expect a lot of visitors from out of town for this festival, including about 40 of the top Handel scholars from around the world.

Handel as a young man

Highlights include:

*The Seattle Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas McGegan, with soprano  Isabel Bayrakdarian

*The oratorio Esther, in a version from 1720 that has not been heard since the 18th  century, performed by Pacific Musicworks and the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, in St. James Cathedral, conducted by Stephen Stubbs.

*Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Acis and Galatea. See the fabulous reviews here.

*A choral workshop for 100 singers, who come to Seattle to sing Handel choruses for three days, culminating in a public concert with full orchestra

*Lectures, mini-course, symposia, and some 18 concerts by local artists