Handel Prize laureate 2022

The "Handel Prize of the City of Halle, awarded by the Handel House Foundation" for the year 2022 will go to music scholar, music historian and university lecturer Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann has been actively involved in Handel research in Halle for more than a decade and his influence has been extremely important, for example as one of two heads of edition, and as a member of the Editorial Board of the Halle Handel Edition, of which he has also edited certain volumes (Berenice, Giustino, currently in preparation). The academic Handel conferences of the past few years during the Handel Festival have borne his signature in their thematic and interdisciplinary orientation. He has also published numerous important contributions to Handel research. In addition, he has supervised research on the subject of Handel, such as the fundamental research project about the reception of Handel under Germany’s dictatorships, the results of which were published in two weighty volumes as part of the Handel House Foundation Studies collection.

He furthermore supervised the thematically related research project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in collaboration with the Handel House Foundation, on the political instrumentalisation of the music of the past in 20th-century Germany, using the example of Georg Frideric Handel, the results of which have also been published as part of the Handel House Foundation Studies collection. One important concern of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann is to ensure that young scholars should take an interest in Handel. In this context, let us mention his initiative to create an international Handel research prize. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann also contributes regularly and constructively to the study courses organised by the Handel House Foundation.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann’s numerous activities in relation to Handel can be seen not least in his active and intensive work on the committees of various Handel institutions. In particular, these include his presidency of the Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft e.V. and his longstanding membership of the Advisory Council of the Handel House Foundation, of which he is the chairman, as well as, in the same context, his advisory role as a member of the foundation’s Board of Trustees.