Strathmore hosts a powerful, compelling 'Messiah'

More than 4,500 singers and instrumentalists filed into London's high-Gothic Westminster Abbey to perform George Frideric Handel's "Messiah" in 1784 -- a quarter-century after his death. By 1859, "Handelomania" had become a British fixture; a group of 3,225 musicians trooped into the city's Crystal Palace to present the oratorio. Such lavish affairs heralded a mix of imperial Britain's pomp and circumstance and a profusion of amateur choral societies thirsting to sing. Today, campaigns galore fo...