The Aspen Choral Society’s annual holiday performances of Handel’s “Messiah” are returning to full force this year after two years of pandemic restrictions, with performances scheduled throughout the Roaring Fork Valley this weekend.
Emma Leake-Parker, choral manager for the Aspen Choral Society, said the group is larger this year than it has been since the COVID-19 muted performing arts in the spring of 2020.
“Our group dwindled over the past two, three years," she said in a joint Zoom interview last week with music director Paul Dankers. "Our numbers are ramping up again, which is really exciting to have that big sound back.”
The Aspen Choral Society produced a virtual performance of “Messiah” to re-create the holiday tradition online in 2020, then performed live last year, but with masks on.
Dankers said the experience wasn’t quite the same with covered faces and muted sounds, so the return to the expressive shows of yore feels especially good.
“It's been a really exciting and very emotional time to return to singing as we used to remember it,” Dankers said.
The group will sing familiar pieces from Handel’s “Messiah,” including the famous “Hallelujah” chorus.
But there are also contemporary compositions in the mix.
In 2021, Dankers commissioned new pieces from Gerald Cohen, a Jewish composer from New York, in an effort to broaden the scope of the music that primarily traces the story of Jesus Christ.
Dankers said Cohen also gave the Aspen Choral Society permission to perform an existing piece that Cohen arranged.
“I thought it would be very reconciling perhaps … to sort of make this more of a collaborative piece rather than an exclusively Christian one,” Dankers said.
The group debuted Cohen’s additions last year and will perform the pieces at this year’s show.
Dankers and Leake Parker said the reception was largely positive — although Dankers takes pride in ruffling a few feathers with the new music.
“I was kind of anticipating that there could be some controversy around it. Maybe I was even hoping for a little controversy,” Dankers said. “If you don't stir the waters a little bit, then you’re probably not doing anything remarkable or interesting.”
The Aspen Choral Society will perform Handel’s “Messiah” on Friday at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Saturday at Mountain View Church in Glenwood Springs and Sunday at The Arts Campus at Willits in Basalt. Tickets are available on the Aspen Choral Society’s website.
