Science (non) Fiction

We’re about to head into our last, crazy week of rehearsals for this year’s production of Handel’s Messiah with The Mozart Club of Winston Salem. I was looking back through my posts for this time last year and found this, and it pretty much sums up how I still feel about Messiah, so I’m re-printing it here. The 2007 performance will be at Reynolds Auditorium at 3pm on Sunday, December 2nd – hope to see you there!

I’m performing in the chorus of Handel’s magnificent oratorio Messiah this weekend (Dec 3rd at 3pm in Reynolds Auditorium, for those interested). The community group that sponsors didn’t perform it last year, but I’ve done it every other year I’ve been in Winston Salem since I started graduate school. And moreso this year than any of the years previously (mostly cause I haven’t been doing any choral singing for over a year now), I’m so grateful for this chance to sing a masterpiece with other people who love Messiah as much as I do, with really great soloists and instrumentalists who do the work justice in performance.

We’ve had our rehearsals this week with the guest conductor who’s come in from NYC (he’s the choral conductor for the NYC Opera), and it’s amazing how much physical work actually goes into singing something like this. I was exhausted after a 2.5 hour rehearsal last night, and in pretty much the same place tonight after another one. But there are times in the middle of rehearsal where you can catch these glimpses of the genius of Handel, things that no matter how many times you’ve sung it will suddenly catch you by surprise; the power of a lyric you hear in a different way, or the clarity of an ascending line from the sopranos that brings a deep emotional response.

And every year, I’m amazed at the poignancy of his description of Christ’s birth, and the vitriole and anguish expressed in the Passion section, and the joy found in the Resurrection. Handel’s choruses describing the trial and death of Jesus are full of text-painting, with chorusmembers representing at one point the angry mob calling for Christ’s crucifixion (’He trusted in God, let Him deliver Him’), and at another the whips during His beatings (’The chastisment of our peace was upon Him’). Our guest conductor this year describes Messiah as more opera than oratorio and I think I agree with him – singing it, you feel like you’re living in the middle of ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’, not just standing by watching it.

And it’s a good reminder as I kick off the busy holiday season, that beyond the ‘Jesus is the reason for the season’ platitudes, there is this: that Christ’s arrival on eath as a baby, while miraculous and glorious on its own, fits in the much larger scheme of God’s plan for redemption, and that His birth would mean little to us without his subsequent death on the cross. And that, friends, is what Messiah means to me.

It’s been a long time since I posted last – sorry. Things have been really busy, and I’ll eventually try to update you about the goings-on in my life lately. But that will have to wait til I have more time. Until then, enjoy this list.

Things you might not know about me

1. I almost have to have the toilet paper roll over the top in order to use it – it drives me crazy to have it come out from the bottom.

2. I care way too much what people think about me. I’m working on that.

3. I think I walk in a strange way – when the ground is wet, my shoes throw water droplets onto the backs of my calves – does that happen to everyone?

4. I have a tiny scar under my right eye from falling into a metal-rimmed ping-pong table when I was little.

5. My handwriting varies a lot from day to day – I mean, if I signed two checks on two different days, it might look like two completely different people signed them.

6. I am often easily coerced into agreeing with you, unless I really don’t like you.

7. I hate throwing anything away. Seriously, anything.

8. I am seriously bothered by grown adults who refer to themselves in the third person. *shudder*

9. I don’t like talking to people I don’t know on the phone. Though I’m getting better at that.

10. I can’t wink my right eye, only my left. And I apparently have no control over my right eyebrow.

There you go. 10 useless facts about me. To tide you over until I can really post.