The Domestic WarHorse attends Messiah Rehearsal

By Rachel Mendell

Mon­day night I attended another rehearsal of The Mes­siah, a pro­duc­tion done each year dur­ing the first week­end in Decem­ber. Choir mem­bers meet on Mon­day nights through Novem­ber to work through a large por­tion of the pieces in the ora­to­rio that Han­del com­posed many years ago.

This will be my sev­enth year of singing in The Mes­siah. Every year I learn some­thing dif­fer­ent. Every year the direc­tor takes a fresh look at each piece of the story, at each song. Dur­ing rehearsal we choir mem­bers can be seen eras­ing some of the breath marks from years before and empha­siz­ing new ones. We get an intense review of dic­tion, tone, rhythm, into­na­tion, the best vow­els to make the rafters ring, and (God help us) breath sup­port for those high notes.

We learn a lit­tle bit more about Han­del each year as well. For exam­ple, it only took him 28 days to com­pose the entire thing and he was in ill health and just about broke when he wrote it. We learn the dif­fer­ence in the Roman­tic style of singing “For Unto Us A Child Is Born” and the Baroque style in which it was writ­ten, and how to make sure we are mak­ing that style come across clearly.

Each year there is lots of work behind the scenes, col­lect­ing the funds needed to put the pro­duc­tion on, bring­ing in snacks for hun­gry choir mem­bers (many of which don’t have a chance to grab sup­per before rehearsals), dec­o­rat­ing, tear­ing down and set­ting up, ush­er­ing, seat­ing, clean­ing, record­ing, pro­mot­ing, cre­at­ing the posters, doing mail­ers, and mak­ing sure the heat is on to warm up cold voices.

Each year folks in the com­mu­nity house some of the instru­men­tal­ists that per­form with the choir each year. These musi­cians are hand-picked and come to us from as far away as Colum­bus, Day­ton, Cleve­land and Cincin­nati (some­times even far­ther), usu­ally brav­ing snow and bad dri­ving con­di­tions to do so. Yes, they are paid for their week­end in Galion, but it barely cov­ers fuel and cer­tainly not time. They come for the same rea­son we do.

Choir mem­bers them­selves come from Ash­land, Mans­field, Crest­line, Bucyrus, Mount Gilead, just for a chance to par­tic­i­pate in this project each year. They have no oppor­tu­nity to do this pro­duc­tion any­where else.

We all gather this same time every year because we love to par­tic­i­pate in The Mes­siah Event. We are just hum­ble church choir peo­ple, although a few of us are soloists. We come because we get to be a part of a much larger thing – an 80-voice choir and a 12–16 mem­ber Baroque orchestra.

I look for­ward to the rehearsals and the per­for­mance every year. I see peo­ple I haven’t seen since the last per­for­mance. I learn new things and I get my voice in shape for singing Christ­mas car­ols. And it isn’t about how well I sing. It’s about work­ing together as one to pro­duce a spe­cial sound, to share a spe­cial message.

If you have never heard The Mes­siah, I encour­age you to join us Dec. 2 at 3 p.m. in the First United Church of Christ on Hard­ing Way West in Galion. Take a seat in the back if you feel more com­fort­able there and when the con­cert is done you can join us for snacks in the base­ment. If you are a choir mem­ber, even if you haven’t sung since high school, please con­sider join­ing us. The first year of rehearsals is a lit­tle over­whelm­ing at first, but there are plenty of expe­ri­enced singers to sit next to. We’ll help you out.

Hope to see you all there. Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by Rachel Mendell on Nov 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.