This exciting project forms part of HPO’s Open Doors Festival.  In a collaboration with choirs from Freiburg in Germany (including Chor Münchweier, Cantemus! Gundelfingen, the church choir of St George and school choirs from Ettenheim), Billingshurst Choral Society and the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra we shall perform Mendelssohn’s magnificent oratorio Elijah.  This local concert is the second stage of an exchange with the German choirs: members of HPC and the Billingshurst Choral Society will take part in a similar performance in Freiburg the preceding week.

Hailed as the Messiah of its day, Elijah was hugely popular and cemented Mendelssohn's position as one of the greatest composers of sacred music. 

A review published in the Times shortly after its first performance was unstinting in its praise: ‘The last note of Elijah was drowned in a long-continued unanimous volley of plaudits, vociferous and deafening ... never was there a more complete triumph; never a more thorough and speedy recognition of a great work of art.’

Helen May (soprano)
Marta Fontanals-Simmons (mezzo-soprano)
Anthony Flaum (tenor)
Jack Lawrence-Jones (baritone)

with Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Felix Konetschny, Cornelius Leenen, Bernhard Schmidt and Marcio da Silva

Supported by funding from Arts Council England.