Save the Children Australia's concert - A Celebration of Handel, on Sunday 27 May 2007 at the Sydney Opera House - raised over $100,000 during the night.  Funds raised from this prestigious event will be used to implement development projects that deliver immediate and lasting improvements to children's lives in the health, education and child protection sectors. 

Over 2000 tickets were sold. Highlights were massed choirs of 400 singers and an orchestra of 100 players performing the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah and the Coronation Anthem from Zadok the Priest, which is sung at every British monarch’s coronation.

Eminent soloists, who included Opera Australia’s Natalie Jones and Richard Alexander, performed arias from Handel’s Italian operas and English oratorios.

Over the past three months, heads of music at three Sydney schools – Barker College at Hornsby, St Aloysius’ College at Milsons Point and Trinity Grammar at Summer Hill – have been working with more than 350 pupils on the Handel choruses they performed at the Opera House, along with the SBS Youth Orchestra under its Russian-born conductor Matthew Krel.

Sydney University Musical Society also enhanced the evening with a 90-strong choir, bringing the total number of musical performers past the 550 mark.

A Celebration of Handel was the inaugural classical concert for Save the Children Australia, the world’s largest independent child-rights organisation.  All money raised on the evening will go towards programs in Australia and overseas.  It is that anticipated that a similar concert will be held in Melbourne in 2008.