Hendrix Meets Handel in Copenhagen

Tuesday, May 31, 2011, 10.15pm
Republique, Festivalcafé
Østerfælled Torv 37
DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø
FREE ENTRY

squib-box presents Hendrix Meets Handel at the Athelas New Music Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. This show will be a version of Too Hot to Handel Too, presented last November at The Handel House Museum.

Handel and Hendrix were next-door neighbours in London – albeit with an interval of 210 years! In an irresistible musical show the London ensemble squib-box has imagined what the meeting between the master of the Baroque and the rock legend would be like.

The Handel Museum in London is situated at Brook Street Nos. 23-25. Georg Friedrich Handel lived in number 25 from 1523 to 1759. And Jimi Hendrix lived in number nr 23 in 1968-69. At first glance they do not have much in common, the German creator of the “Messiah” and ”Water Music”, and the American guitar virtuoso known for setting fire to his guitars – except from the facts that they were both virtuoso musicians and that they both came to live in London. But this co-incidence fascinated the members of squib-box so much that they created the show “Too Hot To Handel” where they let the neighbours Handel and Hendrix meet and play a jam session together.

The mezzo soprano Lore Lixenberg appears as Handel complete with a wig and full costume – in accordance with the opera tradition of letting women sing certain male parts. And Adam de la Cour plays Hendrix with guitar and vocal – in a flower power outfit and with a very different sort of wig. They are accompanied by a band featuring both harpsichord and laptop in their fantastic arrangements of Hendrix’s songs and Handel’s arias

The humorous and highly musical tribute to the two geniusses was first performed – yes, that’s right – at the Handel Museum in Brook Street – and now for the first time, we have a chance to hear it in Copenhagen.

Lore Lixenberg – mezzo soprano
Mark Knoop – piano & harpsichord
Federico Reuben – live electronics
Adam de la Cour – guitar & vocal
Thomas Sandberg – drums
Andreas Bennetzen – bass