{"id":2452173,"date":"2019-12-12T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317572"},"modified":"2019-12-12T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T23:00:00","slug":"aspen-choral-societys-messiah-messiah-returns-for-42nd-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-choral-societys-messiah-messiah-returns-for-42nd-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen Choral Society\u2019s \u2018Messiah\u2019 Messiah returns for 42nd year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Aspen Choral Society has been performing Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d for 42 years, becoming a holiday tradition that transcends religious affiliation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you have to have any religious leaning or inclination to be able to appreciate yet another retelling of this classic story,\u201d Choral Society music director and conductor Paul Dankers said of the Christ story in a recent phone interview.<\/p>\n

With an undergraduate degree and a master\u2019s degree in choral music education, Dankers is no stranger to the choral music world. After having taught vocal music education and music theory and composition for eight years in public schools, he is now in his sixth season as the music director for the Snowmass Chapel and the Aspen Choral Society.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you happen to think that the entire thing is fiction, it\u2019s still a very compelling story,\u201d Dankers said. \u201cI think the music itself is also very compelling and worth the investment that it takes to adjust our modern ears to the music of another time.\u201d The holidays can be tough for people, he noted. Whatever holiday one happens to be celebrating, even in the best of circumstances, it\u2019s stressful. There\u2019s a lot going on. The schedule gets tight, there is shopping to do, cookies to be baked, food to prepare, people to invite, etc. People can easily get overwhelmed with the holidays and Dankers hopes this tradition can relieve some of that stress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always try to have the concert be a place where people can set all of that aside and just have this time where we can let our light and our love wash over them,\u201d Dankers said. \u201cThis should be a time where they can just close their eyes and immerse themselves in the music, feel that lack of anywhere that they have to be, that lack of anything that they have to do, and just be present in that moment and enjoy what we have to offer them.\u201d<\/p>\n

With about 80 singers total, the choir is made up of locals from Aspen, Snowmass Village, Basalt, Carbondale, Glenwood and even as far away as Rifle and New Castle. For the past seven weeks, the choir has come together once a week to rehearse this hourlong performance. There are seven rehearsals and one dress rehearsal that culminate in three performances throughout the valley this weekend.<\/p>\n

The Aspen Choral Society welcomes anyone who is interested in being involved. There is no audition process to join.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody can sing with us and we welcome anybody \u2014 even if they\u2019re a brand-new singer or even if they have been told as a child that they can\u2019t match pitch,\u201d Dankers said. \u201cI think that is utter nonsense for the most part. I\u2019m amazed at how many people are told as children, \u2018Just mouth the words because you can\u2019t match pitch.\u2019 There are so few human beings who are truly tone-deaf. The average person is neither tone-deaf nor unable to match pitch. It\u2019s just a question of training and development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of Aspen Choral Society\u2019s mission is to develop that ability in people and to give them the vocal training and musical training to be able to sing a piece like \u201cMessiah.\u201d Everyone is welcome to join regardless of whether they can read music or have vocal training or choir experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really work hard to make sure that this choir is loving and accepting of all voice types,\u201d Dankers said. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the first things that I tell the choir at the beginning of the process. We have people of many varying talents. I try to put people who have less experience next to people with more experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Aspen Choral Society works to foster a community of people who love and support each other rather than compete.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think choral singing is one of the most egoless, most egalitarian things that we do,\u201d Dankers said. \u201cMost of the time when we do stuff, it\u2019s to further ourselves. When you sing in the choir, you are subverting your own ego. Rather than being there so that you shine as an individual, you\u2019re there to support the entire thing, that your sound actually fits inside the sound of all the other voices rather than standing out among the voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

These days, that in itself can seem like a miracle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s such a cool thing in this day and age,\u201d Dankers said. \u201cWe\u2019re all about our egos. It\u2019s an amazing thing that all these people come together to not be noticed in the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aspen Choral Society has been performing Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d for 42 years, becoming a holiday tradition that transcends religious affiliation. \u201cI don\u2019t think you have to have any religious leaning or inclination to be able to appreciate yet another retelling of this classic story,\u201d Choral Society music director and conductor Paul Dankers said of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2452173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 22:51:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}