My Story of Handel’s <Messiah>

1. Handel’s oratorio <Messiah> made me study English hardly. (Actually, I studied English Bible from the text.)

2. I cried a lot because I was not able to attend <Messiah>full-length concert, and I couldn’t watch Handel documentary on television.

3. A few years ago, I uploaded excerpts of Mozart’s <Der Messias> K. 572 on YouTube. Many people asked me to correct the composer’s name as Handel. Through each comments, I had to explain the fact that this is an arrangement version which is a little bit different with original’s orchestration. In every excerpts video, I explained well (I thought) through the description, but they didn’t read it carefully. I was a little bit anxious with this.

4. My personal most favorite Handel <Messiah> recording is this one. When I was a middle school student, I had a chance to get to know this recording through Korean Baroque Music website called “Tasting Baroque.” At that time, I completely didn’t know about the period instrument performance, but I just liked the way of interpretation.

5. Eight years ago, I had a chance to perform the excerpts of <Messiah> as a piano accompanist. At the end of the concert, I shed a lot of tears because “Hallelujah Chorus” really touched my heart. I was grateful to play Baroque Music that I love so much from 5th grade to at that time. Coming this year, I am looking forward to perform with passionate and young director. It looks like most of church musicians including me cannot avoid Handel at the end of the year or Christmas season.