For one of the first time’s in its’ long history Sinclair Community College’s music department will be performing a major choral work with an orchestra.
The college’s chorale group, chamber choir, women’s ensemble and men’s ensemble, along with the Kettering Adventist Church choir and orchestra, Sugarcreek Presbyterian chancel choir and King’s High School honor choir will be performing 27 movements from the oratorio “Handel’s Messiah,” according to Nolan Long, associate professor of the Music Department.
Long will be conducting the performance that will be held on Nov. 21, 7p.m. at the Kettering Adventist Church, 3939 Stonebridge Road, Kettering, Ohio. The concert is free, open to the public and will last about two hours.
“All together we are looking at about 200 performers. It’s one of the largest music events in our department’s history,” Long said.” Handles Messiah is probably the most frequently performed classical piece of music in the world. To perform all of it would take about three and a half hours of nonstop performances. It is written for chorus, orchestra and soloist.”
About a month ago a guest judge, Arthur William, originally a voice teacher from Texas, was brought in to choose the six soloists required for the piece, according to Long. Five of them chosen are Sinclair students. The soloists are as follows:
Sinclair’s Britteny Cyphers, soprano, Anna Cassel, mezzo-soprano, Joshua Foreman, tenor, Joseph Young, base, Christopher Resor, tenor and Kettering Adventist Church’s Greta Shull, soprano.
Long said the groups have been preparing all quarter and he is extremely pleased with how well it has been coming together.
“This is some of the hardest music the students have had to prepare,” Long said. “Trying to get all of this prepared in 10 weeks is really being a good challenge to the students and they are rising to the occasion. I’m really proud of them.”