Praise for Danbury Music Centre’s ‘Messiah’ performance

Comfort ye, people of Danbury, and rejoice greatly, for unto us has been given a performance of Handel’s Messiah unlike any we have seen before. I refer to the Danbury Music Centre’s “Messiah Virtual Concert,” available on the Danbury Music Centre website (danburymusiccentre.org). Danburians can be proud of the Music Centre’s many past performances of Handel’s Messiah, but this is one we can truly delight in because it demonstrates the victory of musical and technological creativity over the cornonavirus darkness that has covered the earth.

Hats off to the Danbury Concert Chorus, the Danbury Chamber Orchestra, and music director and conductor Dr. Jason Thoms, who found a way to go on making music, like the inhabitants of Whoville, despite the COVID-19 Grinch’s attempts to steal Christmas from us this year. Dozens of individual video recordings were combined to produce a virtual choir that sounds, to these ears, as harmonious as a choir assembled the traditional way. Every professional soloist was exalted and even the rough places made smooth. Anyone who has attempted a singalong in a Zoom meeting will know that this is no easy feat, yet the technical challenges were dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

The Danbury Music Centre deserves our generous support for this effort. The performing arts, and performing artists, have taken a beating this year because they are not considered “essential.” True, art is not required for water, food, and shelter (unless you are an artist). But although life is possible without the arts, it is greatly lacking in joy, like a straight highway through the desert. Through the arts, the glory of the Lord is revealed so that all can see it together. I encourage all those who are feeling low this season to lift up their heads and view this performance.

Perhaps best of all, because it is in cyberspace, this performance may live for ever and ever. Hallelujah!

DMC, the check is in the mail. Worthy is the production. Glory and blessing and honor to those who made it possible. Amen! Bruce Barrows

Danbury