Join us at the Foundling Museum for Handel's Queer Messiah– part of our A Queer Georgian Social Season (this time, in truncated ‘trilogy' format prior to its full fourth edition return in 2025-2026) – as we take you back to a time when queers were more visible and accepted than you thought. Why 'mess' with Handel's Messiah, you ask? So that more of us , you ask? So that more of us – particularly those at the fringes of society in some way or other – can share in its power, that's why. On the surface, Handel's Messiah tells the story of one man’s quest to make his world a better place. Under the surface, it is a story of creation, struggle, and transformation. Handel’s music manifests these aspects of the human condition with sublime eloquence – however, the story is largely perceived as relevant only to certain religions & frameworks of identity. Our pastiche of Handel's Messiah will explore what the concept of a saviour or 'messiah' means from a queer perspective: in the secular, sacred, interpersonal, and intrapersonal senses (one's queer Georgian and/or modern 'messiah'  will always differ to another's, for example); and while we are modifying the libretto as and when needed to reflect this approach, we will not be messing with Handel's powerful music itself – which, in its original form, has the power to fortify both the original & modified libretto, in turn creating a more universal and inclusive story. To be clear, we do not intend this pastiche of Handel's Messiah to insult any religious and/or non-religious individuals, or to be viewed as rebellion against the classical canon for rebellion's sake. In fact, the opposite is true: as we will be repositioning the Messiah story so that it may better resonate with a 21st-century queer audience in particular, keeping intersectionality in mind so that whoever one is beyond their queerness feels represented, regardless of whether they identify as religious or not. After all – very much like Handel's characterisation of a saviour in his Messiah, and very much like any and all art – classical music must rise up, challenge current norms, and re-envision where, how, and for whom we are making music in our day & age. This reimagining of such a seminal musical & literary work couldn't come at a better time, for our present life and times are unforuntately marked by an unwillingness to listen to one another – to the point where we isolate ourselves in 'comfortable' echo chambers that reinforce our existing views, in turn demonising others' opinions & world-views. Our approach to this Queer Messiah therefore aims to help queer people understand themselves and each other better; it also aims to serve as a tool for discussion, connection, and acceptance of oneself as well as each other within the queer community. While our approach may seem radical, it is not. Other than preserving the original music, our performance is firmly anchored in the artistic traditions of the Georgian & baroque eras, owing to the fact that Handel – like many of his contemporaries – constantly modified his Messiah (as well as many of his other works) to attract new audiences, to compensate for changing performance conditions, and/or to oblige the needs of a particular soloist, to the point where nearly a third of Messiah underwent revision during his lifetime (with some choruses & arias existing in three to four different versions). Handel did this because he prioritised the performance experience over an 'accurate' rendition of the 'original' score; therefore, for Handel, Messiah can be seen as a fluid document intended to be altered for different audiences (which can be seen as a reflection of Handel's sexuality and/or gender identity), rather than an immutable work of art. Scholar Jens Peter Larsen says it best with regard to this:  The basic question is whether we can talk at all correctly of an 'authentic' form of Messiah, understood in our later sense as a final version which as a whole and in  details presents the composer’s ultimate view of the form in which he wished to hand down his work to posterity. Strictly speaking, there is no such version . Of course, this Queer Messiah pastiche of ours at the Foundling Museum will be made all the more special due to the fact that Messiah has a direct link to the Foundling Museum – a link that began with Handel's passionate support of the Foundling Hospital: an eighteenth-century charity which gave abandoned & illegitimate babies a home. In 1739, Thomas Coram (1668-1751) had established the Foundling Hospital as Britain’s first home for babies at risk of abandonment; each year, some one-thousand babies were abandoned at the Hospital by parents experiencing extreme poverty and/or other terrible maladies. Handel – who, along with the artist William Hogarth, played a big part in realising Coram’s vision (together, they transformed the Hospital into the UK’s first public art gallery, and in turn, into one of London’s most fashionable venues) – began supporting the Hospital when he put on a fundraising benefit concert to raise funds for the completion of its Chapel. During the first benefit concert in the Hospital chapel to raise funds for the charity, Handel performed his specially composed choral piece: The Foundling Hospital Anthem; the concert also included the ‘Hallelujah' chorus from his recently composed The Messiah, which had premièred in Dublin in 1742. On May 1st, 1750, Handel then directed the first performance of The Messiah – which was originally sung only by the Foundling Hospital’s blind children – for the Hospital to mark the presentation of the organ to its chapel. This performance was such a great success that Handel was elected a Governor of the Hospital the following day. These first two successful concerts for the Foundling Hospital marked the start of Handel's long-standing association with the Hospital in the form of annual performances of The Messiah for the rest of his life; he would also go on to make the Foundling Hospital a beneficiary of his will, leaving “a fair copy of the Score and all the Parts” of The Messiah – which enabled the charity to continue to put on benefit performances in perpetuity after Handel’s death. In short, the combined effort of Handel’s benefit concerts and Hogarth's connections with leading artists (Hogarth asked prominent artists to donate their work to the Hospital to attract and encourage the rich & shameless to open their purses) made the Foundling Hospital the place to be seen – and to be seen helping. The present-day Foundling Museum opened in 2004. All you are required to do is leave your preconceptions at the door, fetch a libation from the bar, and come as yourself – with or without bells on! The Queer Georgian Social Season is conceived & curated by Ian Peter Bugeja & Mark Francis-Vasey. 'Les Bougies Baroques' Conductor-harpsichordist | Ian Peter Bugeja Leader | Christopher McClain MUSICAL PROGRAMME: G.F. HANDEL (1685-1759): The Messiah  (1741)

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