Music Worcester to Celebrate the Holiday Season with December Concerts

Music Worcester will celebrate the holiday season with two concerts featuring its own Worcester Chorus. Artistic Director Chris Shepherd will lead the Worcester Chorus in their long-running annual performance of Handel's Messiah on Saturday December 2nd at Mechanics Hall,  and Associate Director Mark Mummert leads the Worcester Chorus Women's Ensemble in their holiday concert on Sunday December 17th at Worcester Trinity Lutheran Church.  Tickets and information about both concerts are available at musicworcester.org. 

  

“Music Worcester's presentation each December of Handel's Messiah has always served as a warm welcome to supporters, new and long-standing, as the holiday season approaches,” said Adrien Finlay, Executive Director. “This year's performance in particular will be an opportunity to come together for a communal reflection on the human condition.”  

 

Directed by Chris Shepard, the Worcester Chorus is one of America's oldest and longest-running choral ensembles. For many families and choral music fans in Central Massachusetts and beyond, attending the annual performance of Handel's Messiah at historic Mechanics Hall on the first weekend of December remains a holiday tradition. Chris Shepard also directs CONCORA, Connecticut's oldest professional choir, and The Masterwork Chorus of NJ. 

 

 The chorus will be joined on stage by the Worcester Festival Orchestra, as well as soloists Carley DeFranco, soprano, mezzo-soprano Allison Messier, tenor Travis Benoit (a Worcester native) and baritone John Salvi. 

George Frideric Handel's  Messiah  was first performed 281 years ago in Dublin, Ireland, where he had been invited to put on several concerts. In London, Handel found an important admirer of the work in King George II, who it is said, started the tradition of standing during the Hallelujah chorus.   

According to The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, on “Beginning on Sept. 28, 1858, a four-day musical convention at the brand-new Mechanics Hall in Worcester included lectures, sessions devoted to vocal instruction, congregational singing, and discussions about musical literature. The event, the first of its kind locally, concluded with a ‘Grand Concert' featuring a chorus of 200 singers. The repertory included selections from Handel's Messiah. These were the very beginnings of Music Worcester and the Worcester Chorus, with Messiah,” which began to be performed annually at the holidays by the Worcester Chorus well over 120 years ago. 

On Sunday December 17th, the Worcester Chorus Women's Ensemble directed by Mark Mummert, will present a program featuring Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols as well as a selection of Christmas classics and holiday sing-alongs. The Ceremony of Carols stands as one of Britten's best-known and most-performed works. It consists of an eclectic mix of anonymous medieval texts and later poems rather than familiar carols. Mark Mummert also serves as the Cantor at Trinity Lutheran Church, Worcester, MA and is a sought-after accompanist and organist throughout the region. 

 

Seating at Worcester Trinity Lutheran Church is general admission on a first-come-first-served basis. 

 

About The Worcester Chorus 

Founded in 1858 to sing at the first annual Worcester Music Festival in the newly-built Mechanics Hall, the 100-member group includes both amateur and professional singers from Worcester County, northern Connecticut and the Boston area.  

 

About Music Worcester 

Music Worcester, Inc., originally known as the Worcester County Music Association, for years ran the Worcester Music Festival. Current programs reflect the merger in the mid-1990s of the Festival with the International Artists Series and the MA Jazz Festival. Great performances by world-renowned orchestras and guest soloists, chamber music, ballet, world music and dance, jazz and choral masterworks are hallmarks of Music Worcester's annual operations. Multiple educational programs currently serve youth and families of greater Worcester: masterclasses by visiting artists, Tickets to Opportunity, and the Artist-in-Residence program currently involving violinist and humanitarian Vijay Gupta.   

Tickets and information for Handel's Messiah and the Worcester Chorus Women's Ensemble Holiday Concert, as well as for all Music Worcester events can be found at musicworcester.org 

 

Also coming to Music Worcester this season 

  

Midori and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra  

Friday, November 3rd at 8PM  Mechanics Hall  

This Love Between Us 

Worcester Chorus & CONCORA Chris Shepard, Artistic Director,   

Vijay Gupta, violin, Kritya Dance Ensemble.   

Friday, November 10th at 8PM Mechanics Hall  

Tchaikovsky, Paganini, & Gershwin   

Andrew Armstrong, piano; Kevin Zhu violin, Jan Vogler cello.    

Wednesday, January 24th at 7:30PM  BrickBox Theater at JMAC  

  

National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine  

Friday, February 9th at 8PM Mechanics Hall  

  

Voces8  

A cappella sensation and 2023 Grammy-nominated ensemble. 

 Saturday, February 10th at 8PM Mechanics Hall  

  

Jeanine De Bique, Soprano & Warren Jones, piano. 

Friday, February 23rd at 8PM Curtis Performance Hall  

Voices of Eternal Light  

The Worcester Chorus & Worcester Chorus Women's Ensemble   

Sunday, February 25th at 4PM  First Baptist Church 

  

Mnozil Brass 

Friday, March 1st at 8PM Mechanics Hall  

  

Orchestre Métropolitain  

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor  

Sunday, March 3rd at 4PM Mechanics Hall  

  

Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy  

Saturday, March 9th at 8PM The Hanover Theatre  

  

American Spiritual Ensemble  

Saturday, April 6th at 8PM Curtis Performance Hall  

  

Bach B Minor Mass The Worcester Chorus   

Sunday, May 5th at 4PM Mechanics Hall 

  

Marc-Andre Hamelin  

Thursday, May 9th at 7:30PM Mechanics Hall  

  

Tessa Lark, violin/fiddle & Frank Vignola, guitar  

Friday, May 18th  at 8PM Tuckerman Hall 

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