Sheffield

Messiah by George Frideric Handel

In December 2026 Red Events presents George Frideric Handel’s Messiah — the most beloved oratorio ever written — in four magnificent venues across England, performed on period instruments by the Brandenburg Baroque Soloists with a professional choir of sixteen voices and an outstanding quartet of soloists, conducted by Ralph Allwood MBE DMus .

Composed in just twenty-four days in 1741 and premiered in Dublin the following spring, Messiah has never left the stage since. From the tenderness of «Comfort ye» to the blaze of the «Hallelujah» chorus and the serene certainty of «I know that my Redeemer liveth», Handel’s masterpiece traces the story of the Nativity, Passion and Redemption in music of irresistible drama and joy — the sound of the festive season itself.

Ralph Allwood MBE DMus is one of Britain’s most distinguished choral conductors: for twenty-six years Director of Music at Eton College, founder of the Rodolfus Choir and of the Eton Choral Courses that have shaped generations of British singers. Under his direction, a hand-picked professional choir of sixteen voices joins the period instruments of the Brandenburg Baroque Soloists — the London ensemble whose players are drawn from the same pool as the Academy of Ancient Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment — under the musical supervision of Brandenburg Artistic Director Bob Porter .

The solo quartet features soprano Josephine Shaw , countertenor Gleb Zakharov and tenor Gareth Davies , with the bass soloist to be announced.

Experience Messiah as Handel’s own audiences did — vivid, intimate and alive — in the festive grandeur of England’s great halls and churches this Christmas.