November 22,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Come join the Pro Arte Chorale for a joyous sing-along of Handel’s Christmas masterpiece, conducted by Maestro Steven Fox. The Chorale will gather for this event on Thursday December 1st at 7:30pm at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church at 155 Linwood Avenue, Ridgewood, NJ. Bring your own score or rent one of ours. Admission is $10 at the door, including rental score.
Handel created such compelling melodic and fluid music that it’s easy to overlook what is one of history’s great examples of “word painting.” The baroque era in music — roughly 1600 to 1750 — saw enormous interest in this technique of depicting a word’s meaning through music. A basic example is using dissonance to set the word “pain.” Even those who have sung “Messiah” aren’t always made fully aware of Handel’s continual crafting of music to express the words.
Steven Fox, the Music Director of The Pro Arte Chorale, is also the artistic director of Clarion Music Society in New York, and the music director for Musica Antiqua St. Petersburg in Russia. The Pro Arte Chorale, a 60-member volunteer chorus based in Ridgewood, is committed to enriching the lives of its members and its audience by exploring many musical traditions. All performances are held in ADA compliant venues with handicapped accessible parking, ramps and restrooms.
For more information about Pro Arte Chorale or to join the mailing list, visit www.proartechorale.org or send an email to info@proartechorale.org. The Pro Arte Chorale is sponsored in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment of the Arts.
