Sing it Kids! Exalt them Valleys- Why Don’t Ya? (Messiah Sing-Alongs)

Pleeaasseee click on the picture above. It's just lovely up close

I’m heading off shortly to my second

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sing-along-Messiah of the festive season. Tonight it’s at Stanford University’s Memorial Chapel. Yum!I’ve got some lovely compositions based on photos I took from that stage, when I sang in Beethoven’s 9’th and the Verdi Requiem, as part of the Stanford Summer Chorus. I went for the Beethoven (Just One More Daughter outta' Elysium ). I still don’t get the appeal of the Verdi. Give me another decade and I will.

Memorial Chapel ought to be pretty darn nice for Messiah –

Spanish colonial style,

gorgeous stained glass windows, sandstone walls and ornaments. I want architecture when I’m singing baroque stuff. I want to imagine I’m in one of the original performances. The first one was in Ireland, to benefit a hospital. I remember that much. Can’t find my useful little Messiah Book for more details though.

For me, singing Messiah, and other Christmas music, is not about belief in a religious tradition. It’s getting caught up in a historical, western musical experience. It’s about telling a story. I can tell the story of Little Bear without being a bear. I can read aloud from Little House on the Prairie without having traveled across it in a covered wagon, even if my ancestors were living in Samoa or El Salvador at the time. I can sing Messiah and not be a Christian.

Me-oh-my those choruses. Ok, "Hallelujah" is a given. Nobody would sing it who didn't adore that one. In most sing-alongs you get to do it twice. So that gives me a total of six fixes this season. "Every Valley Shall be Exalted" - you bet! My favorite is, “Oh thou that tellst’ good tidings from Zion” Just reading through the soprano part again gets my heart racing.

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My first podcast is actually not out as a 'cast. Instead I'm doing the first couple of months as youtube audio- slideshows as I build my podcasting skills. Please go and see and listen. And let me know what you think (you can leave comments here)

Part1: Folk, Foxes and Francisco

Part2: Folk, Foxes and Francisco

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* I’m planning to do a third Messiah sing-along this month as well- when they plan it, we will sing it!