Ben Parry director The Spanish Golden Age, which flourished during the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, led to some of the most gloriously opulent choral music of the late Renaissance. Ben Parry, co-founder of Dunedin Consort, returns to direct this choral tour of music by Tomás Luis de Victoria and Francisco Guerrero, framed here both by the works of their Scottish contemporaries Robert Johnson and David Peebles, and by those of 21st-century composers Morten Lauridsen and James MacMillan, whose vocal writing resounds…

Fun for all the family is guaranteed in our interactive 45-minute concerts specifically devised for children which will include all the best tunes from Handel’s Messiah. You can even expect an appearance from Handel himself to introduce his most famous melodies…! No age restriction.

When Handel’s Messiah was first unveiled to the public in 1742, it caused a sensation. Dublin’s Musick Hall was so full that the men attended ‘without swords’ and the ladies were asked to wear skirts ‘without hoops’ to make room for more listeners. The press declared a triumph: ‘The Sublime, the Grand, and the Tender... conspired to transport and charm the ravished Heart and Ear.’ More than 250 years on, it still holds a remarkable place in the repertoire, its…

In the years before his reputation as the opera composer du jour was forged, Handel poured his creativity into a series of increasingly adventurous cantatas, among the most ambitious of which is Apollo and Daphne. Inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, this ancient fable finds striking parallels with modern day power struggles, as Daphne fights to resist Apollo’s advances and transforms herself into a laurel tree, her branches watered forever by his tears. This extraordinary tale of passion and penitence is rendered…

From the intractable swell of the opening chorus to the profound solemnity of the last, its tone one of quiet resignation, the Matthew Passion is a work with the power to move us like no other. Bach conceived it on a grand scale, allowing for double chorus and double orchestra, and the themes it explores are just as monumental too. How each of us, of all faiths and none, can find joy and hope even amidst the depths of sorrow.…