Göttingen International Handel Festival

The International Handel Festival Göttingen is the world’s longest-standing early music festival. Year after year, for a twelve-day period around Whitsun the life of Göttingen revolves around the famous composer and his music: the city becomes a magnet for friends of early music and guests from all over the world. Outstanding musicians, acclaimed soloists and a discerning audience are the identifying features of Göttingen as Festival location.

The Göttingen International Handel Festival is celebrating its 90th birthday this year – 90 years of the 'Handel renaissance' that was initiated with the rediscovery of Handel's operatic oeuvre in Göttingen back in 1920. The process was to go down in musicological history.

Presented under a new thematic heading each year, the programme offers Festival audiences a many-faceted range of events, including around 50 concerts. The Festival centrepiece is the production of a Handel opera, and prominent programme elements are Handel's oratorios and chamber music by the composer and his contemporaries. These are embedded in a colourful programme that includes exhibitions, guided tours and public entertainments, while the 'Handel 4 Kids' series places a focus on the communicating of music to children and young people.  

Since 2006, the Festival has also possessed its own ensemble, the FestspielOrchester Göttingen (FOG), in which excellent players from distinguished early music orchestras around the world join forces.