The Handel Institute was established by a declaration of trust in 1987 to advance education by promoting the study and appreciation of the music and life of George Frideric Handel and his contemporaries and associates and by supporting and publishing the fruits of research into such areas. Its activities and organization are as follows.
Hallische Händel-Ausgabe
The Handel Institute is the principal means whereby British Handel scholarship is channelled into the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe (HHA), the modern collected edition of Handel’s works. The Editorial Board of the HHA includes two representatives of the Institute, one of whom is joint general editor.
Gerald Coke Handel Foundation
The Institute nominates two members to the board of the Gerald Coke Handel Foundation, which was created jointly by The Thomas Coram Foundation (known now as Coram Family) and The Handel Institute to realize the vision of the late Gerald Coke, the Institute’s first patron, for the preservation and use of his magnificent Handel collection. The GCHF is responsible for funding and managing the Gerald Coke Handel Collection, which is housed in The Foundling Museum at 40 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AZ.
Scholarly Activity
The Institute organizes academic conferences and also study days related to forthcoming performances. The conferences are normally international and triennial: 'Handel Collections and their History' (1990: papers published by OUP, 1993); 'Handel in the 1730s' (1993); 'Handel and His Rivals' (1996); 'Great among the Nations' (1999); 'Handel in Cities and Houses' (2002); 'Performing Handel – Then and Now' (2005); Commemorating Handel (2007); 'Purcell, Handel and Literature' (2009 - in collaboration with the Purcell Society, the Open University and the University of London's Institute of Musical Research); 'Handel at Court' (2012). Study days have included 'From Passion to Oratorio' (London, 2002), 'Serse in Perspective' (Cambridge, 2003), 'Tamerlano' (Cambridge, 2005), 'Imeneo' (Cambridge, 2007), 'Ariodante' (Cambridge, 2009), 'Handel Documents' (London, 2010) and 'Agrippina' (Cambridge, 2011). The next study day is 'Atalanta' (Cambridge, 4 May 2013).
Awards for Research
The Handel Institute annually awards grants of up to £1000 in support of research into Handel and his contemporaries. Recent recipients and their subjects include: Susanne Dunlap (New York) for research on the sources of the libretto of Susanna; David Hunter (Austin, Texas) on the Irish audience for and against Handel; Berta Joncus (Oxford) on the career of singer–actress Kitty Clive; Olga Komok (St Petersburg) researching London concert life in the first third of the 18th century; and Thomas McGeary (Champaign, Illinois) on opera and patronage in Handel's London.
Information on how to apply for a Handel Institute Research Grant
Newsletter
The Institute publishes a Newsletter twice a year. Regular items include short research articles, and previews and reviews of Handel festivals, conferences and opera productions, especially those taking place overseas.
Liaison
Members of the Institute work closely with sister organizations at home and abroad, notably the Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft (Halle), the American Handel Society, the London Handel Festival, the Foundling Museum and the Handel House Trust. King’s College London and the Royal Musical Association each nominate a Handel Institute trustee.
Trustees
Donald Burrows (chair); Laurence Cummings; Linda, Lady Davies; John Deathridge; John Greenacombe; Andrew V. Jones; Curtis Price; Ruth Smith; Colin Timms; Lawrence Wragg
Council
Donald Burrows (chair); Terence Best; Winton Dean; Berta Joncus; Andrew Jones; Sylvia Levi (treasurer); Curtis Price; Ruth Smith; Reinhard Strohm; Colin Timms; David Vickers
Secretary
Professor Colin Timms (C.R.Timms@bham.ac.uk)
