The London Handel Players
Praised by the New York Times for their “soulful depth” and their “consummate skill and musicianship”, The London Handel Players captivate audiences across the world with their performances and recordings. Making their debut at Handel’s own parish church, St George’s Hanover Square, as part of the London Handel Festival in 2000, the Players appear regularly at the leading venues and festivals in the UK, Europe and North America, performing baroque chamber music and concertos and collaborating with the world’s leading singers.
The London Handel Players have performed across Canada and the United States, making their New York debut at the Frick Museum in 2012 and returning to perform at Carnegie Hall in 2014. Concerts have included performances at Wigmore Hall, Kings Lynn Festival, Internationale Händel-Festpiele Göttingen, Varazdin Baroque Evenings, Spitalfields Festival, Newbury Spring Festival, Halle International Handel Festival, Brighton Early Music Festival, East Cork Early Music Festival and in Spain, Ireland, Germany and Croatia. Committed educators at every level and holding professorships in early music at London’s Conservatoires, The London Handel Players give masterclasses and workshops to children, students and adults at every level, amateur and professional.
The 15/16 season sees the London Handel Players perform alongside Ruby Hughes at Brighton Early Music Festival, a concert which is recorded for BBC Radio 3’s ‘In Concert’. The Players perform further concerts in the East Cork Early Music Festival, Tilford Bach Festival, London Handel Festival and Warwick Early Music Series.
Individually, The London Handel Players pursue busy solo, directing and conducting careers and are leading professors in the field of early music at the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Their numerous recordings, both individually and collectively, have received high critical acclaim. They have recorded four discs of Handel; his two sets of trio sonatas Op.2 and Op.5, his complete works for solo violin and a disc entitled ‘Handel at Home’ which includes a flute concerto and arrangements of famous arias. They have also recorded Geminiani’s complete Op.1 sonatas. Adrian Butterfield has made the world premiere complete recordings of Leclair’s first two books of violin sonatas, Rachel Brown has recorded sonatas and concertos by CPE Bach, Quantz, Telemann and Handel and Laurence Cummings Handel’s 8 harpsichord suites at the Handel House Museum in London. Recent recordings include a two-disc set of JS Bach’s flute sonatas interspersed with some flute arias from his cantatas sung by Elizabeth Cragg, Charles Daniels and Peter Harvey and a flute arrangement of one of the harpsichord concertos which was released in January 2016.
www.londonhandelplayers.co.uk