North Shore singers still do ‘Messiah’ themselves

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Mark Doss returns for his fourth "Do-It-Yourself Messiah."

Updated: December 13, 2011 6:56PM

Hallelujah! The “Do-It-Yourself Messiah” comes again, this year to the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

“Members of our choir have gone for 25 years,” said Patricia Radosavljevic of Wilmette, who has been choir director at Carter-Westminster Presbyterian Church in Skokie for 29 years. “We went to Orchestra Hall, when it was presented by Al Booth and Margaret Hillis.” (Hillis was founder and first director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus.)

This year seven members of the 15-voice choir, plus the director, will drive down to the Harris and take their places according to voice categories — soprano, alto, tenor, bass.

“The Do-It-Yourself gave me the idea to do a ‘Messiah’ concert at our church,” she continued. “This year we gave it Dec. 4.”

Forever favorite

Handel’s vast English-language oratorio was first presented in Dublin in 1742 and it has grown to be a perennial Christmas favorite. “Oddly enough,” said Radosavljevic, “we don’t get tired of it.”

She spoke of the camaraderie that is part of the event. “We meet other people, and everyone is so friendly,” she concluded. “We start outside singing Christmas carols together.”

Retired music educator Richard E. Lange of Deerfield is a member of a group of singers who meet informally in each other’s homes. “There are about 10 of us,” he said. “We’re like a book group, but we get together to sing.”

Lange himself has been going to the “Do-It Yourself Messiah” since 1977, the second year it started. “The performance was in Orchestra Hall then,” he said, “and we’d all meet at the Como Inn and carpool over to Michigan Avenue.”

The singing will be supported by an orchestra of volunteer musicians, both professional and amateur. Richard Young is concertmaster, with Aaron Johnson playing organ, David Schrader on harpsichord, and Paul Semanie playing trumpet.

Professional soloists will be soprano Tamara Matthews, mezzo-soprano Jill Grove, tenor John Tessier, and bass-baritone Mark S. Doss.

Glad to be back

“This will be the fourth time I’ve been a soloist for Chicago’s ‘Do-It-Yourself Messiah,’ ” said Doss, who will come in from Ann Arbor, Mich. “It’s very exciting. I’ll get there on Sunday, Dec. 18, and we’ll rehearse the solos with the orchestra.”

Doss is a Grammy winner who has sung in opera houses throughout the world. Doss has worked previously with the program’s conductor Stanley Sperber, who has conducted the “Do-It-Yourself Messiah” in Chicago for about 15 years.

Sperber is currently professor of conducting at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, an affiliate of Hebrew University, and was music director and chief conductor of the Haifa Symphony Orchestra for 15 seasons.

Though the trip from Jerusalem is a long one, he’s more than happy to do it. “It is definitely worth a little jet lag to be part of this great tradition,” he said. “I am deeply committed to this unique project and what it means to the choral population of Chicago.”