Collegium Vocale Gent & Daucé

Handel fans will be spoiled for choice in the ’25-’26 season with an extensive focus on the Baroque composer. Handel entered into service at the British court in 1712, where he would provide background music for royal festivities for almost half a century. Shortly after coming to court, he composed the Birthday Ode for Queen Anna, with the intimate duet between the soprano and trumpet Eternal Source of Light Divine as a promising hint of what was to come. Alceste, a grand extravaganza of music, drama and visual effects, was composed at the end of his career. Even without the overall spectacle, this music stimulates our senses. The conductor Sébastien Daucé will not be standing in front of his familiar Ensemble Correspondances this time. Instead, he will reveal both the tenderness and the exuberance in Handel with Collegium Vocale Gent and top musicians including Guy Cutting.