Full chorus, orchestra perform Handel’s ‘Messiah’ Dec. 3

Cornell College students, faculty, staff, and community members will come together to perform a well-known concert just in time for the holidays.

They’ve been practicing for months to put on a grand performance of “Messiah” by George Frideric Handel at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 3, in King Chapel on the Cornell College campus. “Messiah” was composed in 1741, and is an oratorio—a large-scale work for orchestra and voice.

Performing groups include the Cornell Symphony Orchestra, Cornell Concert Choir, and Mount Vernon Community Choir members, which includes alumni as well as faculty and staff members.  In all, 80 singers will fill the stage.

Professor Martin Hearne, director of instrumental music at Cornell, will conduct the performance. Professor Lisa Hearne, choral director, has prepared the choirs.

Soloists for the program include Lisa Hearne, soprano; Lisa White, mezzo-soprano, Cornell Director of Alumni Engagement and Annual Giving; Ben Laur, tenor, Cornell voice faculty; and Nicholas Miguel, baritone, Grinnell College voice faculty.

The holiday concert is free and open to the public.