Handel Prize laureate 2024

In 2024, the City of Halle Handel Prize, awarded by the Handel House Foundation, will go to the French conductor and harpsichordist Christophe Rousset. With this award, the Handel House Foundation Board of Trustees is honouring Christophe Rousset’s decades-long, passionate interpretations of Handel’s music on period instruments.

The French conductor and harpsichordist Christophe Rousset was born in Avignon on 12 April 1961 and studied harpsichord at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag. At the age of 22, he won the first prize in the 7th Musica Antiqua competition for harpsichord in Bruges.

In 1991, Rousset founded the ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, a Baroque orchestra with which he regularly gives concerts in Europe and North America. With Les Talens Lyriques Rousset has recorded a series of operas by George Frideric Handel, including Scipione, Ricardo Primo, re d’Inghilterra and Serse. These recordings won great critical acclaim and made Rousset one of the world’s leading interpreters of Handel operas. His interpretations are characterised by vibrant energy and sensual expression. He is a master of conveying the emotional power of the music and invites listeners to immerse themselves in the world of opera.

Rousset is also a much sought-after guest conductor of other orchestras, including that of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, La Scala in Milan and the Royal Opera House in London, the English Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

At the 2024 Handel Festival, Christophe Rousset and the ensemble Les Talens Lyriques will perform the oratorio Jephta (HWV 70) in Ulrichskirche Concert Hall on 30 May. Following this, he will receive the 2024 Handel Prize.

More information and photos are available at: www.lestalenslyriques.com/en/christophe-rousset/