The LaSalle Bank Do-It-Yourself Messiah

Thursday night our family along with about 65 other friends, rode the train into Chicago to the Civic Opera House to sing Handel's Messiah along with about 3,000 other people! The event was the LaSalle Bank Do-It-Yourself Messiah.

The orchestra and soloists were on stage, and the choir was us, the attendees! Maestro Stanley Sperber was our director. We did our best to stay together with the orchestra, but in spite of our best efforts we were still off at times. As a matter of fact, I don't think we've ever been more off before. I'm not sure the exact cause of this occasionally extreme division, but it was still a lot of fun.

On another note, I might add that I think the soloists were the best they've had!

Here are some pictures from the evening.

Getting ready to head out!

Many thanks to Michael Stallings and the use of the Millennium Falcon, in which seven of us were safely transported to and from the Crystal Lake Train Station.

Here comes the train!



Surprisingly, we showed up just as the doors opened and we were still able to get a seat all the way in the front! Here we are in the opera house lobby waiting for the doors to open, so we can find our seats.

Yeah! We got six seats in the very front row! Here's a picture looking back from our seats during the intermission.

On the far left you can see the bass soloist singing "The Trumpet Shall Sound". I am so glad that they had the trumpet soloist come to the front during that piece. They both were incredible!

Ahh, another one of my favorites, the tenor and alto duet "O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?". I might add that (as you can see in the picture) the alto part was sung by countertenor - Brian Asawa.