Lenten Choral Service on March 30
Dr. James Bingham directs the TPPC Choir with guest artists, December 2018.
The Takoma Park Presbyterian Church Choir and Friends will present a service of meditation on Sunday, March 30, at 11:00 a.m. This service will feature selected movements taken from George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, Parts 2 and 3.
The choir presented Part 1 of the Messiah in December, 2022; that being the section covering the promise of and the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The remaining two sections deal with the death and resurrection of Christ and the promise of eternal life for all believers, thanks to his defeat of death on Easter morning. Many of the most loved sections of the Messiah fall into these last two sections.
The performance will include four (4) vocal soloists: Audrey Moïse Béloni, soprano, Ekaterina Tomenko, contralto, Ramone Griffith, tenor and Trevor Scheunemann, bass. All soloists are alumni of Washington Adventist University, Takoma Park, all having majored in music at the undergraduate level. A Baroque-sized orchestra will accompany the service under the leadership of Preston Hawes, who is also an alumnus of the university. Dr. Hawes is now a professor at WAU as well as director of the New England Symphonic Ensemble, a professional orchestra, regularly taking center stage at Carnegie Hall with its regular members, along with a group of elite student musicians, referred to as the Carnegie Scholars, selected from within the university.
Handel’s Messiah has a good claim at being the greatest piece of sacred performing art ever created, being sung and played by more people every year than arguably any other piece found in the classical repertoire; yet its text comes entirely from passages found in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Its impact has been second to none ever since its first performance on the stage of the Musick Hall, Dublin, Ireland, on April 13, 1742. Although Messiah started life in this small hall, its popularity mushroomed until in 1834, it was featured in a large scaled Handel commemoration concert, given in Westminster Abbey, London, employing 625 participating musicians (223 instrumentalists, 397 choral singers and 5 soloists) to an audience of 2,700.
This service promises to be a reflective, yet a triumphant Lenten musical offering, so please plan on attending and bring a friend, that our hearts might be better prepared for the joyous celebration of the Messiah’s resurrection on Easter morning. Remote access will be available via our Zoom feed.
Christmas concert, December 2018
