Benedikt Sings Bach and Händel

Tenor Benedikt Kristjánsson has been praised vociferously in recent years for his Baroque music performances, not least the music of Bach and Händel. He drew worldwide attention virtually overnight for his Good Friday 2020 performance of Bach's St. John Passion, broadcast live from St. Thomas Church in Leipzig in his own arrangement for tenor and two instrumentalists. Conventional Easter performances of the work had been cancelled all over the world because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but instead, tens of thousands of viewers watched Benedikt and his fellow musicians online. The arrangement received the Opus Klassik award for “Most Innovative Concert of the Year.”

For this performance, Benedikt's first with the Iceland Symphony, he sings arias from cantatas and oratorios by Händel and Bach. Among them are two popular arias from The Messiah, as well as “Waft Her, Angels”, one of the most beautiful Händel ever wrote. The orchestra then takes over with selections from the inimitable Water Music, written by Händel for King George I of Britain, for the king's enjoyment as he sailed up the Thames on a summer's evening in 1717. The programme concludes with Haydn's ebullient Symphony no. 99, one of the works he wrote for a London concert series featuring his music.

Belgian conductor Dirk Vermeulen has devoted his career to the performance of 18th-century music. He has conducted the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century on numerous occasions and is on the faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. This is his third appearance at the Iceland Symphony's Advent Concert, following in the wake of his previous performances, which garnered unalloyed praise from both audience and orchestra members.

Festive Baroque music for the Advent season, performed by one of Iceland's premier tenors.