On Saturday 26 November the Bach Society of Queensland will be presenting Handel’s Messiah in St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane. Tickets here.
If you live elsewhere you can use this thread as a roundtable to let others in your area know about similar events coming in to the festive season.
For this event, the Bach Society choir is amplified by members of other groups such as the Brisbane Chorale and the Queensland University Musical Society. The Brisbane Chorale are performing the Messiah on December 3, I understand leaving out the parts about Easter.
My wife joined the Bach Society Choir this year for the first time. She says that most of the people singing the Messiah have sung it before, so the conductor just assumes you know the part. So don’t attempt it unless you are a reasonably competent musician, which she is.
Tonight they had their first dress rehearsal with orchestra and soloists. Beautiful music, magnificent voices.
Should be a good night.
I’ve always wanted to participate in one of those DIY Messiahs. Maybe next year!
GLAWWWRRR
AWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRR
AWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRR
AWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRRAWWWRRRREEYAHHH
IN EK-SEL-SISS
DAY-AYY-YOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Helen, I thought briefly about it, but learning a base part would consume vast amounts of time.
Marina, yeah, OK, but my wife says the pace is actually incredibly fast
I did it once, over 20 years ago now, with a friend. Because it was our first time, we joined the altos rather than the sopranos, because it meant we concentrated a bit harder on the music we were learning rather than the music we thought we already knew. Besides, they always had too many sops anyway.
Have already started warming up the pipes properly for some public carol services that I normally go along to every year – I’m one of the few people around here who knows the traditional descants and can still hit the high notes (when said warming up has been done), which is always rather fun.
Same old warhorse repertoire. No thanks.
Email me when some Bach cantatas come on the programme, though. Or even Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri. An intimate experience, the latter.
Could we get the independents to propose some kind of law about no Christmas music – or decorations or Christmas anything – before December, at least? The bloody stuff’s been in every supermarket since about Nov 20 or earlier. It’s just silly. IT’S NOT EVEN DECEMBER PEOPLE. Looking for birthday candles in Woolies yesterday and they had that truly terrible Gospel Soul “Santa claus is comin’ to Town” thing playing, and I speak as a diehard fan of Memphis style soul.
BAH! HUMBUG!!!
Yes, Marina’s melismatic maunderings can easily wait another month, as can Boney M’s flagitious cover of “Mary’s Boy Child”.