It’s the 1700s and you’re sipping a glass of champagne. Beautiful music is playing through the open air, and you listen to the instruments while cruising gently down the river with your friends. It’s a scene fit for a king, which is exactly why George Frideric Handel composed Water Music. King George I commissioned this soundtrack for an outdoor party on the River Thames, and enjoyed it so much he told the musicians to play it over and over again. It still fits the bill for a delightful occasion some three centuries on.

We’ve turned this event into a miniature Baroque festival because we’re graced with the presence of Kristian Bezuidenhout, an Australian keyboard player and early music specialist now based in London. He’ll play his own harpsichord arrangement of a piece from J.S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue.