America’s Oldest Performing Arts Group Turns 200

“The Handel and Haydn Society, which claims to be America’s oldest continuously performing arts organization, turns 200 this year. Once an amateur oratorio society dedicated to performing new music — the American premieres of Verdi’s Requiem (in 1878) and Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” (1879), among much else — alongside the old, its orchestra and chorus have been among the country’s most prominent early-music ensembles since 1986, when it moved to playing with period instruments.”

source ArtsJournal http://ift.tt/1ewmft2

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