This is the inside of the opera house. It's a bad photo taken with my cell phone but you get the idea. It's huge!Every year for the last 32 years the LaSalle Bank (now the Bank of America) has provided the concert free of charge to anyone who wants to attend (you have to have tickets but they're free). The orchestra is all volunteer and they hire in professional soloists for the Messiah solos.
For those of you who don't know Handel's Messiah, it's a beautiful oratorio that takes about 3 hours to get through - it has many choir sections as well as solos for soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The people attending the concert in the audience are the choir, so every time the conductor comes to a choir piece, he turns around to us, makes us stand up and directs us as a choir. 7,000 voices! It's pretty nice!
We took the train from Crystal Lake at 11:00 a.m. and arrived in Chicago about 12:30 for the 2:00 p.m. concert. Most of the families from our church go and we reserve a private car on the train, bring along our lunch and have a blast the whole day. After the concert we went out for Chicago Pizza and walked around the VERY busy city. Things were hopping in Chicago on Saturday night! Wow!
I'll upload some pictures to this post later but for now you can listen to the encore of the Hallelujia chorus which I recorded on my cell phone.
CLICK HERE to listen
The quality isn't that great but what can you expect for a phone?
Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we'll start practicing again for next year right away. The girls love the music so much we keep the CDs in our car all the time.
Anyway, just thought I'd share a family tradition of the Yen family.
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