A festive favourite that premiered 280 years ago, Handel’s Messiah remains one of the Baroque composer’s most enduring works featuring the exultant and inspirational Hallelujah chorus.
This December, the MSO and MSO Chorus will perform the acclaimed reorchestration by Sir Andrew Davis in two exclusive concerts at Hamer Hall.
Well known to MSO audiences, Sir Andrew Davis is an internationally acclaimed composer and former Chief Conductor of the MSO from 2013-2019. In a career spanning more than 40 years he has conducted virtually all the world’s major orchestras and opera companies, led performances at many of the world’s most important opera houses and at the major festivals.
Handel’s Messiah at Hamer Hall
- Sir Andrew’s Messiah
- Saturday 10 Dec, 7:00pm & Sunday 11 Dec, 5:00 pm
- Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne
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He returns to Hamer Hall as the MSO’s Conductor Laureate to lead his orchestration of Messiah for only its second performance in Australia.
Sir Andrew has a long and distinguished connection with the work having sung Handel’s Messiah as a boy soprano. His reorchestration was a labour of love, in which he aimed to “clothe the work with all the colours available from a modern orchestra.” As a result, Sir Andrew’s Messiah makes use of larger on-stage forces and incorporates such instruments as alto flute, oboe d’amore, harp and marimba.
A few years after its premiere in 1742, Messiah became an Easter time fixture, performed to raise funds for the Foundling Hospital in London. The oratorio has never fallen out of favour and is now more commonly performed around Christmas.
Rather than follow a specific biblical narrative, the text of Messiah is taken from various passages in the Old and New Testament. The vibrant arias and recitatives bring colour and urgency to the subject matter, with Handel utilising visceral word-painting throughout.
Under the baton of MSO Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew Davis, the Hamer Hall concerts will feature the extraordinary vocal talents of soprano Jacqueline Porter, mezzo-soprano Catherine Carby, tenor Andrew Goodwin, and bass-baritone Christopher Richardson with the full voice of the MSO Chorus under Director Warren Trevelyan-Jones.
Buy tickets and find out more information at the MSO website here.
