Multicultural Messiah Presented in Logan and Ogden

“Breaking the sound barrier” has an entirely different meaning for Utah State University audiology students and Cache Valley musicians.

Flying into its sixth annual performance, the community production of Handel’s

Messiah is becoming a tradition that transcends language, hearing and religious barriers.

 

Two performances are scheduled in Logan with another set for Ogden. The Logan performances are March 23 and 24 at the Ellen Eccles Theater in downtown Logan. Tickets are $5, $8 and $10, and they are available at the Cache Valley Center for the Arts Ticket Office, 43 S. Main, Logan. The Ogden performance is set for March 30 at the Peery’s Egyptian Theater. Tickets are $8 or $9 and are available at the theater ticket office, 2415 Washington Blvd. in Ogden.

 

“When this program first started, people didn’t envision it so much as more than just a sing-a-long,” said participant Richard Justise. “But this has become more than just a community coming together. This really is a choir that could rival any professional group in singing such difficult and magnificent music.”

 

While this year’s Easter program offers more new voices than ever before, returning participants of past performances helped consolidate a mixture of talent and experience to launch a first rehearsal that surprised even conductor and founder of the event, John Ribera, a professor in USU’s Department of Communicative Disorders.

 

Another participant, Marilynne Wright, demonstrated a score marked by three generations of singers.

 

“This music is glorious,” she said. “We all get an amazing feeling while singing. There is no other music that expresses sentiments of the ‘Messiah’ so well.”

 

Accompanied by an orchestra and the unique addition of Utah’s Theatrical Interpreters for the Deaf, this rendition of the classic masterpiece also offers a Hispanic flavor. Some of the music is sung in Spanish, and all proceeds of the performance are used for humanitarian aid mission expenses to Baja, Mexico. For three years now members of the USU National Association of Future Doctors of Audiology have spent a week across the border in association with Mexican Medical Ministries, testing school children and people who travel at great lengths to get their hearing checked.

 

“There have been people in the waiting room for four or five hours without complaining, just to be seen by a member of the staff,” Ribera said.

 

In the meantime, traditional clown balloons shaped into animals were used to entertain the children.

 

NAFDA student Spencer Cheshire recalls an experience in which one woman, after being outfitted with a hearing aid, was twisting her hair back and forth between her fingers next to her ear.

 

“As I looked at her face, I noticed the tears in her eyes as she whispered, ‘I can hear my hair, I can hear my hair. Gracias, dios les bendiga,’” Cheshire said.

 

While the multi-cultural Messiah concert is used to raise money for the project, last year the program didn’t cut theater costs for the Ogden performance but was granted pardon. NAFDA students ended up paying additional hundreds of dollars out of pocket to pursue the trip.

 

This year, Thrivant Financial for Lutherans offered to match up to $1,300 in profit. Greatly appreciated and needed, Ribera hopes the concert continues to thrive.

 

“I plan on doing this until I'm too old and decrepit,” Ribera said. “My intent was to get people of various faiths and backgrounds together. Why should it stop just because the person waving the wand had to leave? The quality every year keeps getting better and better. There are professionals who do this on a volunteer basis, and they have really pulled the volunteer and community aspect together.”

 

“There ultimately is no bad side to this production,” said mezzo soloist Loralee Choate. The singer has performed with various vocalists of notoriety and in many halls, but is proud to sing with talented Cache Valley performers after a five year break.

 

“There is so much talent packed into Cache Valley, and the fact that it all goes to Mexico is just great,” Choate said.

 

Other soloists for this year’s performance include Cory Evans, director of choral activities at Utah State; Harold Heap, currently the organist and choirmaster of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Logan; and Dana Slabaugh.

 

Tickets for the Logan performances can be purchased online at the Center for the Arts Web site, or call the CVCA Ticket Office at (435) 752-0026, ext. 14.

 

Tickets for the Friday, March 30 performance in Ogden are also available at the Perry Egyptian Theater Web site.

 

Contact: John Ribera, (435) 797-7190