Introducing The Big Give Christmas Challenge

For one week only, from midday on Tuesday 2 December until Tuesday 9 December, your donations to our Handel for All project will be doubled as part of The Big Give Christmas Challenge.

Our generous matching funders have pledged to double all donations that are made via our Big Give donations page during the week, and there is £20,000 of pledged match-funding for us to unlock! If you want to help us bring the music of Handel to all people, there has never been a better time to donate.

Every single donation, whether £5 or £500, makes a huge difference to Handel for All – and during The Big Give, that difference will be twice as great!

What is Handel for All?

Handel for All is The English Concert’s ambitious initiative to make high quality films of all of Handel’s music, and to share them freely with as many people as possible.

We are creating an archive of performances with the finest soloists of our generation and our world-leading orchestra, that can be enjoyed by anyone, whoever and wherever they are, both in our own time and long into the future.

What has Handel for All achieved in 2025?

  • H4A films have been viewed over 450,000 times, with a total watch time of 55,000+ hours – that’s the equivalent of more than 6 years.  
  • Digital audience members have tuned in from 60 countries, and in a wide range of towns and cities, from Tallinn in Estonia, to Cardiff in Wales, to Cebu City in the Philippines.
  • We filmed our critically-acclaimed presentation of Giulio Cesare in Egitto — a review in The New York Times wrote that TEC “sets a standard for Handel performance in the 21st century”. Thanks to our supporters, this presentation can be revisited for generations to come.
  • The Giulio Cesare project also included an immersive audio documentary about the journey of a H4A film from rehearsal to edit suite, which you can listen to now on our website.
  • Rinaldo and Esther were recorded in full, among many other smaller-scale works.
  • The Brockes Passion films were released to the library – the clip of Hilary Cronin singing ‘Brich, mein Herz’ proved a hit on social media!
  • We launched The Handel Sessions – a companion series of interviews and rehearsal insights – with a video of Harry Bicket and Mary Bevan workshopping ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Rinaldo.

What will your donation go towards in 2026?

  • New films: the first major filming project will be the dramatic oratorio Hercules with William Guanbo Su and Ann Hallenberg, in conjunction with a March 2026 tour of the US and London. Other filming projects include the Italian cantata Donna, che in ciel with Kate Lindsey alongside smaller chamber works.
  • New releases: many of Handel’s most beloved pieces have already been recorded, including Dixit Dominus and the opera Rodelinda, are now ready to be released to the archive for people all over the world to enjoy for free.
  • Music Plus One: we have recorded special multi-track versions of two recorder sonatas directed by TEC Founder Trevor Pinnock. Next year, these will be released, to launch the “Music Plus One” strand of H4A, where viewers can mute the solo part and “play along” with TEC, for practise or pleasure, and experience the joy of being part of a world class orchestra.
  • The Handel Sessions: our latest addition to Handel for All, 2026 will see the continued development of our Handel Sessions, short videos that explore the world behind the music, providing a peek behind the curtain that is both vital and entertaining.
  • Over 30 other films are now making their way through our editing suite. We are always working on the efficiency of this process, and last year’s Big Give donations have allowed us to significantly improve the speed of post-production, including increasing the resources we are able to commit to editing.

(above) Handel for All cameras capture Trevor Pinnock directing recorder sonatas for Music Plus One, launching in 2026

Our Audience Members Say…

  • “I love your online presence. I am elderly and have played and taught violin and viola for many years. I have a very modest pension and am grateful to be able to hear you without cost.”
  • “Handel for All brought back memories of having attended sing-along renditions of the Messiah with my mother.”
  • “What an all-encompassing soul-stirring, goose-bump inducing feast for the ears!”

Keep Reading
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Double your impact with a matched donation to support Handel for All this week.
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Discover the lasting impact Handel for All is having on music-lovers all over the world.
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Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen filed this wonderful dispatch from onboard the Shanghai to Beijing bullet train, on tour with TEC as Rinaldo in October 2025.
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As a charity, TEC’s work is reliant on the support of people like you. Find out more about how you can make a difference