Excerpts from the Chicago Tribune piece (11/24 digital, 11/29 print) by Howard Reich
…Most of these performances have been canceled, with a few migrating online for truncated, prerecorded, scaled-down versions of Handel’s most famous oratorio.
Which raises two uncomfortable and inseparable questions: What are we missing? And how do we get by without “Messiah”?
“We’re missing the sense of community for the performers as much as the audience,” says tenor Matthew Dean, director of University of Chicago chapels and a soloist in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel’s annual “Messiah” (and others).
The University of Chicago’s “Messiah” has been presented annually since 1930 – until now.
“We’re missing the physical experience of feeling the sound in your body as an audience member,” adds Dean. “There is nothing like the acoustics of Rockefeller Chapel … the echoes bouncing off the space and kind of going through you.
“It sympathetically vibrates you in a way that reminds you of the season and of your connection with fellow listeners.”
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…Or, as James Kallembach, director of chapel music at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, sees it, the eventual return of “Messiah” will represent perseverance in the face of catastrophe.
“I sent out a big email (to the choir) at the beginning of the year saying: Every time we sing, singing is a form of resistance,” says Kallembach, who conducts Rockefeller’s “Messiah” every year, drawing roughly 900 listeners. “And the resistance is that we can’t let the arts die.
“What I also told the choir is that if we get out of covid in this school year, the first thing I will perform is the ‘Messiah,’ because I feel it’s like what everyone needs. It’s the catalyst.
“Here’s this little folio in the (British) Library in London, maybe it’s a pound of parchment,” adds Kallembach.
“Think of all the energy that pound of parchment has created over all these hundreds of years. So many performances, so much good will.
“We need it for our communities, and we need it to be human beings.”
Amen.