H+H Blog

Tenor Ben Bliss has been singing J.S. Bach since the days of high school choir back home in the Kansas City suburbs. Now, he travels the world bringing Baroque and Classical music to life with a voice hailed by Première Loge as “close to the ideal.” After making his debut with H+H at our 169th …

H+H principal flute Emi Ferguson grew up in Brookline listening to the Handel and Haydn Society. She stretches the boundaries of the modern-day musician as a flutist, singer, and composer, performing with period ensembles around the world. This month, she’ll light up the Symphony Hall stage as the soloist for Mozart’s first flute concerto, one …

Audiences are asking what semi-staged entails—is there a better description? I think as a director, “semi-staged” just makes me bristle and laugh—but I like to think of projects like this as a way to put energy and focus into very different parts of opera, and craft a “new” art form that is not a fully …

Louise Farrenc By Benjamin Pesetsky With thanks to Teresa Neff Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3 premiered on a program alongside Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at the Société des concerts du Conservatoire de Paris. It was 1849, and she was a piano professor in her mid-40s at the Paris Conservatoire. Her symphony’s premiere was notable not only …

Brooklyn-based composer and bass-baritone Jonathan Woody recently composed his Suite for Orchestra after the works of Charles Ignatius Sancho, an H+H commissioned work based on music in the compositions of Charles Ignatius Sancho (1729 – 1780), the first person of African descent to publish classical music. In this blog post, Woody discusses more about the …

Charles Ignatius Sancho By Benjamin Pesetsky Sancho’s Early Life Charles Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780) is remembered by the British Library as a “writer, composer, shopkeeper, and abolitionist.” We know a great deal about his life from his letters, with further details provided by a 1782 biography. According to this account, Sancho was born on a slave …

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Violinist, Fencer, Soldier, and Classical-era Composer of African Descent By Benjamin Pesetsky With thanks to Teresa Neff Joseph Bologne’s Early Life Joseph Bologne (1745–1799), Chevalier de Saint-Georges, held a remarkable number of occupations and positions during his life: composer, conductor, violinist, impresario, champion fencer, military officer, and nobleman. All even …

By Benjamin Pesetsky With thanks to Teresa Neff The Italian Baroque Scene Most Italian Baroque music was written for the spare-no-expense world of the aristocracy, particularly in Rome. But that doesn’t mean it was all composed for the same purpose: in fact, there were big differences between music intended for sacred and secular use, as …

By Sally Bradford With thanks to Teresa Neff Few masterworks of Baroque music can rival Handel’s Messiah for its eternal popularity. Many of us are familiar with Messiah, but some may have heard myths and legends about this great work. How many of these questions are you able to answer correctly? 1. Did Handel write …

By Benjamin Pesetsky With thanks to Teresa Neff Rumors and Legends The lives of Baroque and Classical music composers are rich with legends, making it hard to distinguish myth from history. Some misconceptions are modern inventions due to the passage of time, but others actually sprang up during the life of the composer or shortly …