Handel S Messiah

Columbia Pro Cantare performs selections from Parts II and III of Handel's "Messiah" at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 6 at the Jim Rouse Theater, 5460 Trumpeter Road. A lecture precedes the concert at 6:30 p.m., and refreshments will be served at intermission. Advance tickets are $23, $20 for seniors and students, $25 and $22 at the door. Call 301-854-0107 or 410-799-9321 for more information.

BCAS sings 'Messiah' in WashingtonFor most Americans, Christmas simply isn't Christmas without Handel's "Messiah." This season features a Baltimore-in-Washington "Messiah." The Baltimore Choral Arts Society and its gifted music director, Tom Hall, will join forces with the National Symphony for four performances in the Concert Hall of the Kennedy Center: Dec. 16-17 and Dec. 19 at 8:30 p.m. and Dec. 18 at 1 p.m. The soloists will be soprano Janice Chandler, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, tenor Richard Clements and baritone David Evitts.

The waning days of the year remain packed with holiday-theme programs - more on them in a moment - but don't overlook something completely different. You'll find it at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where the music department can be counted on to provide regular bursts of contemporary action. UMBC's Faculty Recital Series offers a major work this week by groundbreaking American composer George Crumb, who has written some of the most challenging - and rewarding - works for performances and listeners alike.

Free performance, sing-in of Handel's 'Messiah' setA free holiday performance and sing-in of Handel's "Messiah" will be presented at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 6 p.m. Sunday.Soloists are local artists from the Baltimore area. They include: Lisa Brodie, soprano; Betty Malkus Ridgeway, contralto; Steven James, tenor; and Paul Redline, bass.Lois Stout will be the conductor. Plan on singing along with the soloists and chamber orchestra. Sheet music will be available.The church is on Route 29 at St. John's Lane.

With new guidance on the podium and the unmistakable sound of new potential in the air, the Handel Choir of Baltimore opened its 70th season over the weekend, presenting portions of two holiday classics. The crowd that turned out Sunday afternoon at Goucher College's Kraushaar Auditorium found a lean ensemble onstage - 40 singers, a third fewer than in recent years. The back-up for the chorus was likewise lean - an orchestra of about 20 baroque-style instruments, which produce a softer-edged tone than modern counterparts.

In the beginning, 1742, Handel's "Messiah" was a rather intimate creation, performed by chamber-sized chorus and orchestra. When the Victorians got ahold of it, the oratorio was blown out of proportion to match the inflated piety of the day, sung by hundreds, even thousands of voices, with giant orchestras to match. And the tempos Handel had known got slower and slower. "Messiah" survived. That Cecile B. De Mille business persisted into the 20th century, but by the 1970s, the craze for historical authenticity - a scholarly attempt to recreate the original dimensions, tempos, even instruments - resulted in smaller, leaner, often bloodless versions.

HAMMOND HIGH has just presented "The Crucible," a play about witches and paranoia in Puritan Salem.The cast is particularly grateful to Sally Livingston, a professor at the University of Maryland who, taking pity on the cast, edited the original four-hour play into something more manageable for actors with other calls on their memory skills.The crew appreciated the encouragement and skill of John Ensor, the new industrial arts teacher at the school who helped build the sets. Madonna Bradley, a professional seamstress, helped with the costume design.

Choral society will perform Handel's 'Messiah' todayToday is just one day short of the 250th birthday of Handel's "Messiah," the most popular piece of choral music in the English-speaking world. It's appropriate, therefore, that the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and its music director, Tom Hall, have selected Handel's masterpiece to perform today in Meyerhoff Hall.As he always does, Hall will approach the work using a historically informed approach, and he will use the same choral and orchestral forces that the great composer used almost exactly 250 years ago when he conducted "Messiah" for the first time in Dublin.