December | Handel's Messiah

Handel’s Messiah is a perpetual audience favorite. No holiday season is complete without the unforgettable melodies, dramatic text and impassioned vocal writing — including the Hallelujah Chorus.

Handel’s librettist, Charles Jennens, chose sections of both the Old and New Testament for the lyrics of this work. George Frederic Handel, though not a native English speaker, makes the words of the King James Bible come alive with his brilliant musical settings.

Amazingly, the Messiah was composed in a mere three and a half weeks, but Handel continued revising the score for more than a decade. This persistent reworking and refining of the music created a masterpiece unlike any other.

This weekend we are proud to bring the Bremerton WestSound Symphony’s production of Messiah, with soloists, chorus and orchestra, back to both Silverdale Lutheran Church and Bremerton High School Performing Arts Center. We enjoyed an enthusiastic sold-out house at our last Messiah performance and with your help and support, we hope to make this an on-going event. We are proud to present soprano Emerald Lessley, tenor Andrew Etherington, mezzo Soon Cho, baritone Micah Parker, and the Bremerton Symphony Chorale under the direction of LeeAnne Campos.

Here is a glimpse of our rehearsals and a previous performance. https://youtu.be/byQwwPH3Jjc

Music directors are faced with a mountain of new research on Handel’s beloved Messiah - research that raises as many questions as it answers. Do we perform the first edition, which Handel premiered in Dublin in April 1742, or do we recreate the 1749 London performance with Handel’s later additions? Do we try to mimic the grandiose performances of Victorian England with a multitude of extra players and scores of extra singers to make a performing group with many hundreds of musicians (tempting for any music director!) or do we adhere to the concept of a small Baroque ensemble?”

We have again decided for a delightful musical compromise for this year. Handel’s original Baroque orchestra was comprised of strings, oboes, bassoon, trumpets and timpani. When Mozart performed the Messiah, he added more instruments for greater symphonic depth. In the same spirit, I created parts for a pair of flutes to give more orchestral colors. During my research on Mozart’s activities with his Masonic Lodge, I took the opportunity to peruse the parts that Mozart composed for his own revival of the Messiah in Vienna. He sparingly used trombones to reinforce the lower voices of the chorale, a common practice that goes back to the early Renaissance and the use of Sackbuts. I have followed Mozart’s example and greatly expanded the trombone parts.

As we end this year, I would like to thank everyone who has helped make the Bremerton WestSound Symphony a thriving and vibrant part of the Kitsap Arts Community. Happy Holidays from the Podium! See you at the Symphony!

Purchase your tickets to our December 13th and 14th Messiah concerts here.