ABSTRACT
The festivals in British towns had shown clearly the need for a strongly motivated organising figure. Edward Bunting was approaching 40 years of age: he had the maturity, the musical ability, the professional contacts, and the practical knowledge of affairs, the motivation and the energy to undertake the promotion of a festival. The information given in the newspaper advertisements is supplemented by the list of performers given in the programme for Messiah available to the audience and by Bunting's handwritten list of fees. Of the thirty-odd instrumentalists, the majority can be identified as Dublin based, mostly in Cooke's Crow Street Theatre band. The events were to follow the established British pattern of oratorio in the morning with secular concert or other event in the evening. Tom Cooke was to lead and Bunting, presiding at organ and piano, was to be conductor.
