Embark on a musical journey through the heart of Baroque with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists. Featuring Bach’s St John Passion, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and Handel's Theodora, these performances celebrate the timeless beauty and complexity of Baroque music. With renowned conductors like Peter Whelan, Jonathan Sells, and Christophe Rousset, and set against majestic backdrops across Europe, these events promise to both captivate and educate, inviting audiences to experience the depth of emotion and historical significance of these masterpieces.

A Journey Through Baroque Gems: From Bach to Purcell and Beyond

Immerse yourself in the grandeur of Baroque music as the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists present a series of captivating performances. From Bach's revolutionary 'St John Passion' to Purcell's dramatic 'Dido and Aeneas,' and Handel's evocative 'Theodora,' these events offer a rich tapestry of historical and emotional depth. Guided by renowned conductors like Peter Whelan, Jonathan Sells, and Christophe Rousset, these performances promise to delight audiences across Europe with their artistry and historical significance.

A Journey Through Baroque Masterpieces: Bach, Purcell, and Handel's Timeless Works

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists perform Bach’s masterpiece with Olivier Award winner Peter Whelan.

The crowning glory of Bach's first Leipzig cantata cycle, his revolutionary St John Passion changed the course of liturgical music history, stamping his interpretation of the gospel in his largest-scale work to date.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists have shaped modern audiences' understanding of this music for over 60 years with vivid and compelling performances. Baroque specialist Peter Whelan returns to direct the ensembles, after a critically-acclaimed debut with them in 2024.

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Bach: St John Passion

Palau de la Música Catalana

Müpa Budapest

St Martin-in-the-Fields

Following a triumphant debut with the Monteverdi Choir in December 2024, celebrated French baroque specialist Christophe Rousset brings his dramatic flair to Handel’s thrilling oratorio this Christmas.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists have been performing historically-informed Handel for almost 50 years, and are “unbeatable in the performance of this repertoire” (Scherzo). A stellar cast of soloists will join “the best choir in the world” (Trouw), bringing MCO’s trademark immediacy and drama to Handel’s festive masterpiece for the first time in over three decades.

Handel: Messiah

Église Saint-Roch

Teatro alla Scala

Auditorium Parco della Musica

Messiah

St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, London

La Scala Theatre

Saint-Roch Church, Paris

The Usher Hall transforms into a sanctuary for John Tavener’s magnum opus, The Veil of the Temple. This is only the second time it has ever been performed in the UK.

EIF: Opening Concert: The Veil of The Temple

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Following their thrilling performances of J.S. Bach motets with Jonathan Sells at the Leipzig Bach Festival in 2024, the Monteverdi Choir performs two of his miniature masterpieces in 2025, alongside Handel’s barnstorming setting of Psalm 110, Dixit Dominus.

This concert will allow the Choir and English Baroque Soloists to unleash the full range of their expressive potential, from the plangent intimacy of Purcell’s Funeral Sentences to Handel’s virtuosic vocal and instrumental writing.

Sing to the Lord a New Song

Snape Maltings

The Concertgebouw Orchestra in Ein deutsches Requiem with conductor Dinis Sousa, the Monteverdi Choir, baritone Christian Gerhaher and soprano Lenneke Ruiten – in her Concertgebouw Orchestra debut.

A German Requiem

The Concertgebouw

Sir John Eliot Gardiner leads two of his period ensembles in a remarkable moment for Carnegie Hall history: our first complete performance of Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato since 1895, described by an attending critic as “one of the greatest and most completely beautiful choral works ever written” (The Sun). Composed during Handel’s gradual transition from opera to oratorio, and based on the poetry of John Milton, it’s an enchanting work with notable solos for singers and instrumentalists.

English Baroque Soloists

Carnegie Hall

Sir John Eliot Gardiner leads the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir in music for which he is most renowned: J. S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, a work widely considered a pinnacle not just of choral music, but of Western music as a whole. Gardiner sees “the mass as a compendium of all the different styles and approaches that J. S. Bach took across 30 or 40 years of music making.” With his esteemed period ensembles, he brings this music to life with a vibrancy made possible by a lifetime of passionate exploration and performance.

One of the world’s most innovative musicians, Sir John Eliot Gardiner founded the Monteverdi Choir to share Italian music with a British audience accustomed to the English choral tradition. Over the next 60 years the choir has grown to include an extensive repertoire encompassing music from the Renaissance through 20th century classical music, earning Gardiner a knighthood and the honor of performing at King Charles III’s coronation. Ahead of a performance at Carnegie Hall, Gardiner will conduct the Monteverdi Choir in a performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor at McCarter with the English Baroque Soloists.

Bach: Mass In B Minor

Alexander Hall

Nahezu zeitgleich sind die Werke von Georg Friedrich Händel und Johann Sebastian Bach entstanden, die John Eliot Gardiner mit den English Baroque Soloists und dem Monteverdi Choir beim Musikfest Berlin präsentiert. Beeindruckende Zeugnisse aus dem Frühwerk der beiden großen Barockmeister!

Händel | Bach

Philharmonie

An immersive production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, conducted by Jonathan Sells and directed by Andrew Staples.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists present Purcell’s operatic masterpiece, with the Cutty Sark as a stunning backdrop. A cast of leading soloists bring this drama – based on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid – to life as never before.

With the hull of the historic ship looming over the narrative like a spectre of the Trojan fleet, the production will incorporate Purcell’s Funeral Sentences, written for the funeral of Queen Mary who founded the Royal Hospital for Seamen, on the site of the present Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas

Cutty Sark

Handel's great oratorio is one of the most celebrated choral works of the 18th century. A radical vision of faith and freedom.

London in 1750: rocked by earthquakes, and stunned by the 65-year-old Handel’s penultimate oratorio. The adopted Englishman had abandoned his tried-and-tested Old Testament formula for a work set in Christian times, and ending not with triumph and fanfare, but the minor-key death of hero and heroine.

The 18th-century audience shunned Theodora, but 225 years later this story of devotion and martyrdom is firmly recognised as a masterpiece, containing some of Handel’s greatest arias (‘As with rosy steps the morn’; ‘With darkness deep’; ´Angels ever bright and fair’), and choruses which range from the rollicking to the pious to the anguished.

The Monteverdi Choir is amongst the world’s greatest exponents of Handel oratorio, and Theodora requires the choir’s whole expressive spectrum, stretching from the piety of oppressed Christians, to the orgiastic revels of Roman pagans. Continuing our exploration of Handel oratorio in ‘staged’ concert performances, Christophe Rousset conducts the Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, bringing his trademark operatic panache to this transcendental work. They are joined by an international cast of soloists, each of them acclaimed for their thrilling performances of Handel.

Monteverdi Choir

May 21, 2026

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas

Nov 18, 2026

Handel: Theodora

Mar 6 - Apr 3, 2026

Bach: St John Passion

10 - 16 Dec, 2025

Handel: Messiah

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