March 1, 2017
Handel and Haydn Society Returns to Tanglewood

Tanglewood, the famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and widely known as one of the world's most beloved music festivals, announced that its 2017 season would include special guests Handel and Haydn Society, performing Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, marking H+H’s return to Tanglewood, since last performing in 1991. The concert, often referred to as a semi-opera, The Fairy Queen is based on William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Led by conductor Harry Christophers and narrated by Antonia Christophers, the performance features countertenor Robin Blaze as Mopsa and bass-baritone Matthew Brook as the Drunken Poet, Corydon, and Hymen. The performance takes place Wednesday, August 19, 2017 at 8pm at Ozawa Hall, 297 West Street, in Lenox, MA. Tickets go on sale January 29, 2017 at 10am, range from $12-124, and may be purchased by calling 888.266.1200 or visiting www.tanglewood.org, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, in Boston.

“Purcell was a brilliant music dramatist and an undoubted genius,” shares H+H Artistic Director Harry Christophers, “and The Fairy Queen was undoubtedly his greatest work for the London stage. Purcell conjures up the magic, wit and sensuality’ of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with his exquisite music. I cannot think of a more glorious venue for this dramatic work than Tanglewood.

About Robin Blaze, countertenor
Countertenor Robin Blaze is now established in the front rank of interpreters of Purcell, Bach, and Handel. He made his debut with the Handel and Haydn Society with Messiah in November 2016, and his opera engagements have included Athamas in Handel Semele at Covent Garden, Didymus in Handel’s Theodora for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Arsamenes in Handel’s Xerxes, Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hamor in Handel’s Jephtha for the English National Opera. He works with many distinguished conductors in the early music field: Harry Christophers, Emmanuelle Haïm, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Paul Goodwin, Gustav Leonhardt, Robert King, Nicholas Kraemer, Sir Charles Mackerras, Trevor Pinnock, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. His work with Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan has been particularly praised by critics: the two latest CD releases, Bach B Minor Mass and the three solo countertenor cantatas, have been described as “heart- stopping” in Gramophone.

About Matthew Brook, bass-baritone
Matthew Brook leapt to fame with his 2007 Gramophone Award winning recording of Handel’s Messiah with the Dunedin Consort, followed by equally critically acclaimed recordings of Acis and Galatea and St. Matthew Passion. Recent and future highlights include Argenio in Imeneo at the Göttingen International Handel Festival, Fauré’s Requiem with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Monteverdi Vespers with the Dunedin Consort, Mozart’s Requiem with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with the Hallé Orchestra, Zoroastro in Orlando with the English Concert, Handel’s Messiah with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, Il Re di Scozia in Ariodante with the Staatstheater Stuttgart and on tour with the English Concert, Bach’s Lutheran Masses with the Academy of Ancient Music, and performances of Bach’s B Minor Mass and The Dream of Gerontius with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

About Harry Christophers, Conductor and Artistic Director
The 2016-2017 season marks Harry Christophers’ eighth as Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society. Since his appointment in 2009, Christophers and H+H have embarked on an ambitious artistic journey toward the organization’s 200th anniversary with a showcase of works premiered in the U.S. by H+H since 1815, broad education programming, community outreach activities and partnerships, and the release of a series of recordings on the CORO label. Christophers is known internationally as founder and conductor of the UK-based choir and period-instrument ensemble The Sixteen. He has directed The Sixteen throughout Europe, America, Australia, and the Far East, gaining a distinguished reputation for his work in Renaissance, Baroque, and 20th- and 21st-century music. In 2000, he instituted The Choral Pilgrimage, a tour of British cathedrals from York to Canterbury. He has recorded over 120 titles for which he has won numerous awards, including the coveted Gramophone Award for Early Music and the prestigious Classical Brit Award in 2005 for his disc Renaissance. His CD IKON was nominated for a 2007 Grammy and his second recording of Handel’s Messiah on The Sixteen’s own label CORO won the prestigious MIDEM Classical Award 2009. In 2009, he received one of classical music’s highest accolades, the Classic FM Gramophone Awards Artist of the Year Award, and The Sixteen won the Baroque Vocal Award for Handel Coronation Anthems, a recording that also received a 2010 Grammy Award nomination as did Palestrina, Vol. 3 in 2014. From 2007, he has featured with The Sixteen in the highly successful BBC television series Sacred Music, presented by actor Simon Russell Beale. The latest hour- long program, devoted to Monteverdi’s Vespers, will be screened in 2015. Harry Christophers is Principal guest conductor of the Granada Symphony Orchestra and a regular guest conductor with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. In October 2008, Christophers was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Leicester. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford , of the Royal Welsh Academy for Music and Drama, and was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2012 Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

About the H+H Orchestra and Chorus 
handelandhaydn.org/about/period-instrument-orchestra-and-chorus/

About David Snead, President and CEO
David Snead joined H+H as as President and CEO in October 2015 after serving as Vice President of Marketing, Brand and Customer Experience at the New York Philharmonic a role he held since 2001. Previously, he led the marketing programs of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Guthrie Theater, Milwaukee Symphony, and Hartford Symphony. He has also served as Associate Marketing Director of the Minnesota Orchestra, General Manager of the Richmond Symphony, and Executive Director of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony. Snead is on the faculty of the League of American Orchestras’ Patron Model seminars, and is a regular lecturer at New York University and Drexel. A noted expert on the relationship between orchestras and their audiences, he has been a featured speaker at national conferences in the United States, England, France, Finland, the Netherlands, and Australia. 

About the Handel and Haydn Society
The Handel and Haydn Society is internationally acclaimed for its performances of Baroque and Classical music. Based in Boston, H+H’s Orchestra and Chorus delight more than 50,000 listeners each year with a nine concert subscription series at Symphony Hall and other leading venues in addition to a robust program of intimate events in museums, schools, and community centers. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Harry Christophers, the ensemble embraces historically informed performance bringing classical music to life with the same immediacy it had the day it was written. Through the Karen S. and George D. Levy Education Program, H+H also provides engaging, accessible, and broadly inclusive music education to over 10,000 children each year through in-school music instruction and a Vocal Arts Program that includes six youth choruses.

Founded in Boston in 1815, H+H is the oldest continuously-performing arts organization in the United States, and is unique among American ensembles for its longevity, capacity for reinvention, and distinguished history of premieres. H+H began as a choral society founded by middle-class Bostonians who aspired to improve the quality of singing in their growing American city. They named the organization after two composers—Handel and Haydn—to represent both the old music of the 18th century and what was then the new music of the 19th century. In the first decades of its existence, H+H gave the American premieres of Handel’s Messiah (1818), Haydn’s Creation (1819), Verdi’s Requiem (1878), and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (1879). Between 2014 and 2016, H+H celebrated its Bicentennial with two seasons of special concerts and initiatives to mark 200 years of music making. Since its founding, H+H has given more than 2,000 performances before a total audience exceeding 2.8 million.

In addition to its subscription series, tours, and broadcast performances, H+H reaches a worldwide audience through ambitious recordings including Haydn Symphonies, the critically-acclaimed Haydn: The Creation, the best-selling Joy to the World: An American Christmas, and Handel Messiah, recorded live at Symphony Hall under Christophers’ direction.

About Tanglewood
One of the most popular and acclaimed music festivals in the world, Tanglewood-the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937-is located in the beautiful Berkshire Hills between Lenox and Stockbridge, MA. With an average annual attendance of more than 300,000 visitors, Tanglewood has a $60 million impact on the Berkshire economy each summer. Tanglewood presents orchestra concerts by the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, and visiting ensembles, featuring many of the greatest classical musicians of our time; recital and chamber music concerts in the intimate setting of Ozawa Hall; programs highlighting the young musicians of the Tanglewood Music Center; and performances by some of today's leading popular artists. Introduced in 2013, $20 tickets for attendees under 40 will be available for select BSO and Boston Pops performances in the Shed. Tanglewood is family-friendly, with free lawn tickets available for children and young people age 17 and under, and a variety of special programs for children, including Kids' Corner, Watch and Play, and the annual Family Concert, this year to take place on Saturday, July 22. Tanglewood is also the home of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's preeminent summer music academy for the advanced training of young professional musicians, and Days in the Arts, a multi-cultural arts-immersion program that gives 400 fifth-, sixth-, and seventh- graders from communities across Massachusetts the opportunity to explore the arts in week-long sessions throughout the summer. For more information visit www.tanglewood.org. 

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