Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

So tonight was the performance of Handel's Messiah! It went swimmingly well. The church was pretty full, the soloists and orchestra sounded beautiful, and save a few trip ups, the choir totally rocked it. For those of you back home who don't quite get it (as my friends here didn't either) this was a legitimate concert. Orchestra, organist, conductor, professional soloists, and us... the choir. Haha... a couple pros, a couple music majors, and then the rest of us amateurs. :) A few ambassadors came including the ambassadors from America, South Africa, and Ghana. The whole place was buzzing after the concert about how we made the American ambassador cry at the end. Glorious. Ryan, the choir director who put this all together is trying to start a music company and this was the first show to see if he could really make it happen. I think it most certainly can. In fact already has.

Highlight of the night for me, singing Hallelujah. (typical) The lights were up in the whole place, (not even dimmed at all) the whole show so I could see everyone's face in the crowd; something I'm not accustomed to when performing. People were falling asleep, looking like they were dying, bored, etc. (some of the worst ones didn't come back after intermission.) It was rather discouraging so I started this game of searching for the people that were actually enjoying it and that was really nice to find the ones that were. Some just had this pleasant smile the whole show. But after Hallelujah, smiles all around. Big smiles. I almost started crying (I'm such a crier). It all made sense at that moment. I'll admit I thought about quitting a few times. I have very precious time away from work and schelpping myself about an hour by subway to reherse for 4 hours and home again an hour every Saturday (and over 8 hours for our 2 intensive rehersals... though I missed a few rehearsals so I can't complain too much) using my break time at work to study music (and admittedly still not totally learning all of the last song, woops) I was like ahh. Why am I doing this to myself!? But then after Hallelujah... That moment happened where it clicks and you actually make the desensitized masses excited for a moment over music. That is the song they sit through the rest of the show to see.

9 people came on my behalf and I'm so grateful. Wish all of my friends and family back home could have seen it but I was glad to have my Korea family there. :) Much thanks!


There was an audio recording of the show, and probably some photos to come too but I just wanted to write about it now before I forgot. Now I'm going to rest my poor tonsilitis throat (perfect timing huh? started a week and a half ago) and sleep the night and day away. That was fun but I'm so glad it's over! Back to my music stuff (well I didn't stop but more practice now!) and maybe studying some Korean again!

앗싸!!