The San Antonio Messiah has grown tremendously from 2009 to
now. The Messiah Choir has grown in participants from 111 to
241, the Full Orchestra from 44 to 66, the Youth Choir from
34 to 69, and the Children’s Choir from 41 to 93. The
audience size has grown to over 1800 people over three
performances. And what started off as a community event with
participants from only a handful of different churches, has
now grown to participants being from over 30 different
churches and over 70 different congregations.
In 2009, rehearsals were held in a
smaller church building where pianos had to be pushed from
room to room to be used. Susan
Slaugh, the conductor, rehearsed the orchestra for 1 ½ hours
and then the choir afterwards for another 1 ½ hours. Now all
rehearsals are held simultaneously in the much larger church
building that we currently use with over 20 volunteers
assisting. For the 1st annual Messiah
performances, Susan was 8 months pregnant, did not own a
conductor’s podium, and so she carefully stood and balanced
on two chairs to conduct the choir and orchestra. The
following year she stood on a paint ladder and then Charles
Jewel volunteered to build a large conductor's podium for
the Messiah, which is still used today.
Susan
Slaugh founded and produced the Messiah from 2009-2011,
Tracy Gudmundson from 2012-2014, and Susan began producing
again from 2015 to now. The
Messiah Production Committee strives to improve and make
changes each year with the most recent upgrades being to
advertising, sound equipment, audience seating, digital
rehearsal sign-ups, the prelude Youth Orchestra, etc.
The San Antonio Messiah continues to provide the San Antonio
community with high caliber music, the message that Jesus
Christ lives and is our Savior, and truly powerful and
inspiring performances of Handel's Messiah each Christmas
season.