Hallelujah—Washington, D.C.’s favorite holiday tradition returns! Since its debut nearly three centuries ago, Handel’s Messiah reigns unchallenged as the ultimate celebration of holiday joy. This year, experience the larger-than-life oratorio in all its splendor as Masaaki Suzuki conducts the NSO, a stellar cast of soloists, and the University of Maryland Concert Choir in this always daring, beloved classic.

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Masaaki Suzuki conducts Handel’s Messiah

Kennedy Center

Masaaki Suzuki will conduct his acclaimed his vision of the work, performed according to Bach’s partbooks, with solo singers stepping out of the choir. The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists will be integrated with the most brilliant members of a new generation of Bach singers. 

To experience a performance of the St Matthew Passion is to participate in something larger than a concert. For Bach and his congregation, this music formed part of a shared act of devotion, a way of understanding and engaging with the central message of Christianity. But the generosity of Bach’s musical imagination allows the music to resonate beyond its original context with an extraordinary humanity, bringing solace and inspiration to performers and listeners, whatever our beliefs.

Bach’s earlier musical version of the Passion of Christ, the St John, was already extravagant and ambitious by the standards of the time.  The St Matthew, composed for Leipzig in 1727, goes even further, with two choruses and two orchestras, sometimes in dialogue, sometimes in ferocious opposition, sometimes in exultant unity. Bach illuminates the complex structure of the piece with amazing inventiveness, varying the instrumentation and musical structures, interweaving the ancient chorales of his Lutheran forebears through the biblical narrative and the reflective poetry of his collaborator Picander.

“A dream cantata date for Japanese maestro and local supergroup…Here was choral and instrumental Bach performed not just with meticulous professionalism but a dash and verve that filled each movement with an infectious enthusiasm.”

Bach: St Matthew Passion

University of Michigan

University of Georgia Performing Arts Center

University of California, Berkeley

Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts

Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

St Martin-in-the-Fields

Carnegie Hall

Princeton University

The Pennsylvania State University

Dinis Sousa conducts the combined forces of the Monteverdi Choir and Royal Northern Sinfonia in a performance of Bach's legendary St Matthew Passion, 300 years after it was first performed.

Bach: St Matthew Passion - Royal Northern Sinfonia

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music

St Matthew Passion

Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras

Jone Martínez

Events

Upcoming events

9 - 23 Feb, 2027

Bach: St Matthew Passion · Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras

Mar 7, 2027

Bach: St Matthew Passion - Royal Northern Sinfonia · Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras

Past events

19 - 22 Dec, 2024

Masaaki Suzuki conducts Handel’s Messiah · National Symphony Orchestra

Future and recently performed repertoire

Singer in St Matthew Passion by Bach

Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras

About

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