It’s not Christmas without Handel

In the classical music world, it’s as much a part of the Christmas and holiday season as eggnog, gingerbread cookies and department-store Santas. Yet George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” had its debut in Dublin, Ireland in 1742 at Easter, and the famous oratorio was as much about Christ’s death and resurrection as his birth.

Be that as it may, the “Messiah” is now a Christmas staple of many (if not most) metropolitan orchestras and other classical ensembles. The Valley is no exception: Tonight (Friday) at 7:30 p.m., the Arcadia Players, the period music ensemble, will deliver their interpretation of the piece at Mount Holyoke College’s Abbey Chapel.

The Arcadia Players, now in their 29th season, specialize in performing Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classical music on replicas of 18th-century instruments, which members say gives the music lower pitch and a more mellow and intimate sound.

That approach would seem appropriate for the “Messiah,” given that Handel originally wrote the oratorio for fairly modest vocals and instrumentation. After the composer’s death in 1759, according to Smithsonian magazine, the “Messiah” was steadily revamped for larger, grander productions, though over the past 25-odd years more orchestras have returned the oratorio closer to its original scale. 

The performance by the Arcadia Players will feature noted singers and soloists from the area along with ensemble members on their period instruments. The group is led by artistic director Ian Watson, a native of Great Britain who has won much praise on both sides of the Atlantic for his keyboard playing and conducting.

Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. show range from $10 for students to $40 at the door for the general public and can be ordered at arcadiaplayers.org. More information is available at (413) 586-8742 and info@arcadiaplayers.org.

 

Even more at Hawks & Reed

The Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield has become one the region’s busiest art venues over the last few years, with multiple shows every weekend and sometimes during the week. All kinds of music — rap, jazz, blues, rock, folk — can be heard there, and a wide range of theater also takes place.

The Main Street center also features visual art, and for its newest exhibit, organizers have turned to one of their own: Andrew Nighswander, media director for Hawks & Reed.

Nighswander, a painter and digital designer who attended the University of Massachusetts, has also created short animated films. But for his exhibit at Hawks & Reed, which runs through January 2019, he’s put together a series of paintings and drawings that he calls “a transcription of an inner landscape.”

Nighswander says his dark-hued works began as a series of ink drawings that he created to document his own passage through the Valley’s landscape. From there he further developed his ideas, themes and impressions with charcoal drawings and abstract paintings. “The works are generated in alternating sessions of mark making and erasure that allow each pass to inform the next. Forms unfold, and over time, a landscape emerges as the pattern of light and dark develop a sense of depth….Faces and figures, ruined buildings and strange creatures all evolve to populate the landscapes.”

A reception for the artist takes place at Hawks & Reed, 289 Main St. in Greenfield, on Sunday, Jan. 6 from 11 a.m to 2 p.m. 

— Steve Pfarrer