Handel's Messiah - 150th Anniversary Concert

York Musical Society are performing Handel's Messiah at St Lawrence Parish Church on Saturday 12 December, and it's a bit more than just another Christmas concert. This performance closes the society's 150th-anniversary season, and they're doing it by returning to the work that started it all.

Founded in 1876, York Musical Society is the city's longest-established choral society. They usually put on three or four concerts a year, often singing in York Minster, so this is one of their bigger dates of the season. The choir has been led by figures as different as the famously irascible Sir Edward Bairstow and its current director, David Pipe, and its history runs deep into the city's choral life.

Over those 150 years, the society has sung the German Requiem in York Minster during the First World War, performed for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and filled the Minster nave with 700 voices for a 'Come and Sing Messiah'. Since 1993, they've also maintained a partnership with the Philharmonischer Chor Münster, a choir from York's German twin city, as a gesture of reconciliation.

Coming back to Messiah to mark the anniversary brings the whole thing full circle. It's on Saturday 12 December at St Lawrence Parish Church, York.