If you were planning on singing Handel’s Messiah with the Cowichan Consort this year, you need to join the choir.
Their presentation on Dec. 3 is not a sing-along event, according to group publicist Joy Ann Bannerman.
“Robert Mari, the Cowichan Consort Orchestra and Choir conductor, has announced that the Handel’s Messiah will be a ‘performance concert’ not a sing-along concert. So, anyone in the Cowichan Valley who wants to sing the choruses, especially the Hallelujah chorus, should come out and sing in the big [Cowichan Consort] choir, which is practising each Wednesday evening at Sylvan United Church, Mill Bay at 7:30 p.m.,” Bannerman shared last week.
The Consort began performing The Messiah in 1995 and regularly did performance productions, not sing-alongs.
“The past few years have been sing-along performances [with] audience members singing with the orchestra and choir while sitting in the audience. But this year, the Consort is returning to a performance format (audience members sit and listen to the concert) for the Dec. 3 concert,” she said.