The participatory project "À vos marques, prêts… Chantez !" began in 2017 with the world’s most popular oratorio: Handel’s Messiah.
Workshops spanning several months were organized to facilitate learning and rehearsing the works.
A glimpse of the experience below!
On On January 28, 2017,the participatory concert of Messiah was performed at the Palais de la Musique et des Congrès de Strasbourg. This experimental project, supported by the City of Strasbourg, the Fondation Orange, the DRAC Grand Est, the Fondation SNCF, and the Fondation Passions Alsace, gathered more than 800 singers, led by the Maîtrise de l’Opéra national du Rhin and the Orchestre du Rhin, playing on period instruments—laying the groundwork for a cross-disciplinary collaboration..
The event was a resounding success. Broadcast live online, the concert received over 15,000 live views, an unprecedented milestone for an artistic performance in Strasbourg! This reinforced Strasbourg’s role as a cultural hub in the region and fostered the development of a cooperative system, bringing together amateur singers, public schools, individual registrants, music schools, and professional musicians.
The concert was streamed live on Facebook and is available on Dailymotion:
A revival of Handel’s Messiah took place on January 21, 2018, at Strasbourg Cathedral, allowing participants to relive the extraordinary moment from the previous season while further developing spontaneous participatory singing. Many amateur singers who took part in Messiah also returned for "À vos marques, prêts… Chantez Carmen !".
Listen to the full "À vos marques, prêts… Chantez Messiah de Haendel"* series on Accent 4: http://blog.accent4.com/2016/10/reecouter-vos-marques-pretschantez-le.html
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