The Handel Festival in Halle is the only festival in Germany to take place at authentic venues such as the Handel House, the Cathedral, the Market Church and many more. No other baroque music festival offers 5 to 6 staged baroque opera productions in just 17 days and shows the entire range of Handel’s oeuvre; his work enters into a dialogue with jazz, classic rock and electro sounds as well as non-European music within the framework of bridge-building. Also, Halle (Saale), often underestimated, is a beautiful place to visit.
With a cornucopia of events ranging from grand opera to solemn oratorio and dazzling concerts right through to genre-crossing formats, the Halle Handel Festival is scheduled to take place from 6 June to 15 June 2025 in the city of George Frideric Handel’s birth. The festival title is “ Fresh Wind: The Young Handel in Italy”. With 66 main and secondary events in 17 venues in and around Halle, you can hear international stars of Baroque music such as Julia Lezhneva, Max Emanuel Cencic, Anna Bonitatibus, Mahan Esfahani, Rey Chenez, Bruno de Sa and Christoph Prégardien alongside Reinhard Goebel, Fabio Biondi, Martyna Pastuszka, Attilio Cremonesi, Federico Maria Sardelli, Hervé Niquet, Wolfgang Katschner, Lautten Compagney Berlin, the Italian ensembles Modo Antiquo and Europa galante, the Polish {Oh! Orkiestra} and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, as well as the Danish Concerto Copenhagen and Le Concert Spirituel from Paris. The City of Halle Handel Prize, awarded by the Handel House Foundation, goes this year to the Handel Festival Orchestra Halle. With it, the Handel House Foundation Board of Trustees honours the decades of dedicated interpretation of Handel’s music on period instruments by this specialist ensemble of Staatskapelle Halle.
Handel Festival Halle is the largest music festival in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and one of the oldest and most famous Baroque music festivals in Europe. Nowhere else in the world do lovers of Baroque music have the opportunity to experience so many stage and concert productions of Baroque opera in the space of just 10 days. One special feature of the Handel Festival in Halle is that a number of different events take place in authentic Handel venues.
By plane: The nearest airports to the Handel Festival Halle are Berlin and Leipzig/Halle.
By train: There is an excellent train connection between Berlin and Halle (Saale).
Local transport: Most hotels and festival locations are within walking distance from Halle (Saale) main station.
“Music in authentic venues” is the slogan of the Halle Handel Festival, during which the whole city will once again be turned into a stage. Ceremonies and concerts will take place at the Handel monument and the Red Tower, as well as different churches in the city. The festival will also include open-air performances on Marktplatz or the Botanical Garden. The closing concert will take place in the Galgenberg Gorge, where the centenary will be celebrated with a grand fireworks display!
But besides these new, innovative formats, tradition continues to loom large at the Handel Festival. Several concerts make reference to the festival’s roots, taking place in the banqueting hall of the Leopoldina, in the Löwengebäude, Ulrichskirche, as well as to the large-scale church concert in Moritzkirche.
There is no specific dress code. Due to the variety of events you might want to take some casual and some elegant clothing, if you plan to visit several events. The weather in Halle in June tends to be changeable, and not too hot – from 12°C to 24°C.
Halle (Saale) offers a lot of attractions for visitors: the famous Castles Moritzburg (an art museum) and Giebichenstein (an art college), the beautiful Saale island “Peißnitz”, the Francke Foundations’ baroque architecture and historical collections, the romantic Renaissance cemetery Stadtgottesacker and, of course, the Handel Monument on Market square and Handel’s birthplace nearby: the Handel House and museum.
Halle (Saale) has a few hotels, which normally accommodate the Festival guests and visitors. As the Handel Festival is a magnet for visitors, we recommend booking far ahead in advance.
Apart from Walking Dinner and Lunchtime concerts there are no restaurants onsite, but lots in town to be explored. It is usually recommended to book in advance.
The Saale-Unstrut-area is a region for quality wine and one of Europe’s northernmost traditional wine regions. In March 2022 the restaurant “Speiseberg” has been awarded with a star of the “Guide Michelin”.
