MCS - What's New

The Minnetonka Choral Society presents
Handel's Messiah

Jere Lantz, Director

Sunday, December 14, 2008
3:30 p.m.
St. Therese of Deephaven
18323 Minnetonka Boulevard
(Minnetonka Blvd, 1/2 mile west of Hwy. 101)

Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students 16 and younger.
Tickets are available at the door or directly from MCS members.
If you want to purchase a large block, contact our Tickets officer.

MCS Turns 40!
The 2008-2009 season is indeed special for the Minnetonka Choral Society: it is the 40^th year that the suburban choral stalwart has sung to concertgoers in the area surrounding the Twin Cities’ largest lake.

Their celebration begins with a musical monument: Handel’s Messiah.

Messiah and MCS have long been linked. After conductor James Dow had led members of western suburban church choirs in Messiah excerpts over a several years, the choristers decided they wanted to sing together much more than a few weeks each year. In the fall of 1969, they united as the Minnetonka Choral Society. Their first concert? Messiah, of course.

Since then the MCS warblers have covered the entire waterfront of the choral repertoire, including commissioning new works of their own. But to celebrate their 40^th, they will be honoring their beginning with a return to Handel.

This Messiah will not be the typical hodge-podge of holiday movements with the Hallelujah Chorus tacked on at the end. Instead, current Music Director Jere Lantz, in his 16^th season at the helm, will lead the 90-voice Society in traversing Handel’s masterpiece from start to finish: from the overture to the final extended “Amen.”

Together with a professional orchestra and a quartet of gifted vocal soloists, the Minnetonka Choral Society will honor its four full decades of performance with a most memorable testament as to why Handel’s masterpiece remains music’s greatest celebration of our most glorious holiday season