Handel’s Messiah to light up the Friary

THE sublime Hallelujah Chorus will sound on high in Killarney on Sunday, December 16, next as some of the county and country’s foremost classical talents perform Handel’s Messiah at the Friary.

Starting at 8pm, the concert will feature professional soloists Aisling O’Carroll (soprano, Tralee), Sarah-Ellen Murphy (contralto, Limerick), Fearghal Curtis (tenor, Dublin) and Cormac Lawlor (bass, Tralee) – all of whom will be joined by the Kerry Chamber Choir and Kerry Chamber Orchestra under the director of Aidan O’Carroll of the Kerry School of Music.

“The Messiah’s universal fame and popularity arises from the dramatic and often exhilarating music of movements such as: For unto us a child is born, I know that my redeemer liveth, He was despised, The Trumpet shall sound and, of course, the sublime Halleluja Chorus,” Aidan said this week.

It was famously premièred in Dublin on April 13 of 1742 at Neil’s Music Hall in Fishamble Lane, adjacent to Christchurch Cathedral – then the second city of the British Empire. Handel had been invited to Dublin by the Lord Lieutenant to give a series of concerts, with the newly-composed Messiah taking the city by storm on its first performance.