Area musicians combine their talents to present a performance of George Frederick Händel’s Messiah at 7 p.m. Dec. 12 in the Greenville High School Performing Arts Center. Admission is free.
“This is a special holiday tradition that has been performed in our community by local musicians every few years since at least the mid-1970s,” said Valerie Vander Mark, MCC Performing Arts Coordinator and concert producer. “Years ago it was sponsored by the Creative Arts Council, and I felt it was very important to continue the tradition. The most exciting thing about it for me is the different blend of talent that we get each time we perform it. Though Händel wrote this great work over 250 years ago, and we perform the same music each time, it is always a new mix of singers and instrumentalists, so it is never the same performance twice.
Mark Dombroske, music teacher at Belding schools, is co-directing this year’s performance with Vander Mark.
Händel composed the Messiah in 1741 in just 24 days. It was first performed in a concert given for charitable purposes in Dublin, Ireland, on April 13, 1742. Händel conducted the performance in person.
The MCC Alumni & Friends Choir – a community choir made up of singers from Greenville, Six Lakes, Stanton, Trufant, Sheridan, Carson City, Cedar Springs, Ionia, Crystal, Orleans, Coral and Grand Rapids – will perform the concert. Greenville Middle School teachers Jeff Ayres and Ann Marie Jones will rehearse the orchestra.