Renowned period instrument orchestra The Hanover Band returns to Kings Place with acclaimed director Robert Howarth, a top-flight team of soloists and the hand-picked professional voices of the Hanover Band Chorus to perform Handel’s timeless Messiah. There’s no finer way to start Christmas!

Handel’s Messiah takes us from the tenderness of the Christmas story to the blazing magnificence of the final Amen chorus, through some of his most exquisite arias for solo voices and the rousing brass and timpani of music’s most famous Hallelujah (sorry, Leonard Cohen!) It’s easy to see how this oratorio, written in just 24 days in the summer of 1741, grew from its modest Dublin premiere to become the smash hit of the Georgian age.

The Hanover Band has always felt a special affinity for Handel, an early-Hanoverian giant whose music continued to resound throughout the era, and we’re delighted that this tour marks our first collaboration with Robert Howarth, one of the country’s leading directors of Handel’s music. We join forces with a stellar line-up of soloists and The Hanover Band Chorus—our hand-picked ensemble of professional voices—to make this the Messiah to hear this Christmas.

‘What was striking was the crispness and clarity not just of the Band but the Chorus too.’
‘I really don’t remember Messiah being so spine-tingling or harmonically squishy… A triumph’ Planet Hugill

This event will last approximately 2 hours and 35 minutes, including the interval.

About Philippa Hyde

Philippa Hyde commenced her singing studies with Ann Lampard MBE and continued under the tuition of the late tenor David Johnston and Yvonne Minton CBE at the Royal Academy of Music. She graduated with the coveted Dip. RAM in 1993. In 2001 she was awarded the ARAM, an honour granted to past students of the Academy who have achieved distinction in their profession.

Philippa’s busy and varied concert, oratorio and operatic career has taken her all over the world, from Helsinki to Beijing, as well as to many of the major concert venues and festivals of Europe. She has performed regularly with The Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Parley of Instruments, The Musicke Companye, Canzona, The Hanover Band, the Harmonious Society of Tickle Fiddle Gentlemen,  as well as with her own Period Instrument ensemble, Bloomsbury Baroque.

About Tom Lilburn

Tom Lilburn is an English countertenor who won first prize at the Northern Aldborough Festival New Voices Singing Competition 2026. He is also a Young Artist with Opera Prelude. Tom sings with the choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and in April 2021 he was one of four singers at the funeral of The Duke of Edinburgh.

An experienced oratorio performer, recent performances include Handel’s Theodora and Messiah, Bach’s Mass in B Minor and St. John Passion, Purcell’s King Arthur, Vivaldi’s Cessate, omai cessate, Orff’s Carmina Burana and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.

About Bradley Smith

Bradley studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, and the Royal Academy of Music. While at the Academy, he was a prize-winning finalist in the Joan Chissel Prize for Schumann Lieder, winner of the Blythe-Buesst Aria Prize, and winner of the Tom Hammond Opera Prize.

His career has enabled a comfortable balance between the theatre and the concert platform.  In his oratorio work, he is regularly engaged to sing the Evangelist and tenor solos in the Bach passions, Handel’s Messiah, and other repertory staples with major orchestras internationally, including the Hanover Band.  Recent venues include St John’s Smith Square, the Cadogan Hall, Kings Place, the Birmingham Symphony Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, Theater an der Wien, the Barbican, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and the Théâtre Champs-Élysées. Recent performances include Britten’s Serenade for Tenor and Horn, Schumann’s Liederkreis Op. 39, Fauré’s La bonne chanson at Kings Place, Britten’s War Requiem, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio for the Odensee Symphony Orchestra.

About Matthew Rose

British bass Matthew Rose is acclaimed for his distinguished interpretations of the great bass repertoire. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music before becoming a member of the Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Matthew’s international career has seen him enjoy a close relationship with The Metropolitan Opera, for whom he gave his 100th performance in 2022. His roles there include Filippo II and Monk (Don Carlos), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Claudio (Agrippina), Masetto and Leporello (Don Giovanni), Oroveso (Norma), Ashby (La Fanciulla del West), Talbot (Maria Stuarda), Bottom (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Night Watchman (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Frère Laurent (Roméo et Juliette) and Colline (La bohème).

Passionate about music and vocal education, Matthew runs Folkestone on Song, an organisation that brings song and singing to Folkestone and East Kent via an international song festival, a bursary award for emerging artists, and a singing academy. He is also the co-director of the Spoleto Vocal Arts Workshop, in association with Mahler & LeWitt Studios and Vocal Masterclass Stockholm.