Gary Becomes Cultured...For One Day

I went to FlyingV's concert this afternoon. He sings in the Hartford Chorale and he finally had a concert on a weekend where I was in town. His group was performing Handel's Messiah with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Given that the Hartford Chorale is a volunteer group that requires an audition and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra is a professional group, it was cool to see FlyingV performing the The Bushnell with such talented company. The Hartford Chorale sounded awesome. I was extremely impressed with their sound, power, and intonation for a volunteer choir. However, with the exception of the Hallelujah chorus at the end of the concert, I did not enjoy the two-and-a-half hour musical piece. It just didn't entertain me.

The Hallelujah chorus did remind me of a high school experience. Mpls Ju, do you remember when some members of our Humanaties class taught the entire class to sing that song? I remember the students running the class and the teachers getting frustrated since no one was paying much attention and ~20% of the semester grade for the students in charge was riding on our performance. Not really a funny story, but I was reminded of it today.