As a title, “Too Hot to Handel” gets it only half right.
The updated, jazz-gospel version of Handel’s famed oratorio “Messiah” is certainly hot. But perform- ers and audiences are “handeling” it just fine.
The Colorado Symphony marks the 10th anniversary of its first presentation of the piece, with performances at 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday in Boettcher Concert Hall.
If the orchestra is one of the longest-running presenters of the piece, it is gaining more company each year.
“Too Hot,” which was conceived by Marin Alsop, the symphony’s conductor laureate, and debuted by her and the Concordia Orchestra in 1993, is spreading across the country.
Other ensembles that have presented it include the Baltimore Symphony, Florida Orchestra and Rackham Symphony Choir in Detroit, with groups such as the Greensboro (N.C.) Symphony performing excerpts from it.
“As soon as we did it the first year, I thought, ‘Oh, man, this is a hit,’ ” Alsop said. “It’s so satisfying to see so many orchestras, not only in America, but there’s interest growing abroad, starting to do the piece. It’s really, really exciting.”
In addition to orchestra, the work requires a gospel choir, a rhythm section with electric guitar and Hammond B3 organ, and three vocalists who are classically trained but can handle jazz, gospel, and rhythm and blues.
“To get a sense of this offering,” wrote a Post critic in 2001, “try to imagine what might have happened if George Frederic Handel had met Aretha Franklin and Quincy Jones. The result is an all-amplified piece that follows the basic thrust of the famed oratorio but jazzes and juices it up with an overlay of blues, rock, soul and gospel.”
Alsop believes its success derives from the quality of Handel’s original work and the inventive resettings by co-arrangers Bob Christianson and Gary Anderson.
“It’s got a lot of variety,” she said. “It’s got joy. It’s got poignancy. Beauty. It just speaks a language that everyone can relate to, especially during the holiday season.”
Suzanne Mallare Acton, artistic and music director of the Rackham Symphony Choir, said she was talking to tenor Rodrick Dixon after a performance of the traditional “Messiah” and happened to mention that she was interested in “Too Hot.”
The tenor had performed the work elsewhere and was able to get Acton in touch with Alsop, and the Detroit choir performed it for the first time in March 2002.
“We started off in a church, just to try it out and see how Detroit audiences would take to it, and they went nuts. So we moved it to the opera house,” said Acton, who also serves as the chorus master for Michigan Opera Theatre.
Three years ago, in conjunction with Martin Luther King Day, she also began leading performances of “Too Hot” in Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre, with about 45 members of the Rackham Choir voluntarily joining forces each year with local singers.
“I like the energy of it,” Acton said of the work. “I like the combination of so many different genres. And for an audience like Detroit, it’s just perfect, because you have the classical yet gospel, jazz, rhythm and blues. It’s a great marriage of all the musicians here.”
She also likes the way the piece leaves room for the individual stylizations and improvisation. In her version, soloists typically add improvisatory quotations from such sources as James Brown or “The Nutcracker.”
“The Detroit sound is going to be a little bit different than what you have in Denver,” she said. “Our sound has probably a rougher hue.”
Alsop’s idea for “Too Hot” was inspired around 1990 in part by a conversation with a non-musician friend, who liked the “Messiah” but felt it took too long to get to the “good part” — the Hallelujah Chorus.
“And I thought, it’s crazy that my peers don’t have a more engaged reaction to this piece,” Alsop said.
She started talking to Christianson and Anderson, good friends who had written works for Concordia and Alsop’s swing ensemble, String Fever, about creating a “hipper,” contemporary version of the “Messiah.”
“They thought I was crazy, of course,” she said.
But the three got together with copies of the score, and pored over it section by section, deciding what new style might work best for each. A jazz waltz? A shuffle? A big gospel number?
“We went through the piece and talked about the possibilities,” she said. “I was very keen to keep the text, the melody, basically, and the structure the same. And they split it up, and each did about 50 percent of the numbers.”
Concordia premiered it at New York City’s Lincoln Center in 1993, but the Colorado Symphony did not immediately jump on the bandwagon.
“It took Denver a few years to agree to give it a try,” Alsop said. “But, obviously, once we did it, it was a big hit.”
The orchestra has considered “resting it” and maybe doing it only every other year, said Doug Adams, the symphony’s president and chief executive officer, but audiences simply haven’t allowed the orchestra to take it off the lineup.
“It’s a fun, different kind of show for the orchestra to do and perform, clearly, and that’s a benefit,” Adams said. “But there is real demand for the program.”
“Too Hot” is the only symphony offering that some people attend each season.
“And that’s great,” Adams said. “That broadens our reach and brings in a different audience, and we like that.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“Too Hot To Handel”
Crossover classical. Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. A jazz-gospel updating of the “Messiah,” featuring conductor Marin Alsop, soprano Lillias White, alto Natalie Oliver-Atherton, tenor Thomas Young, Colorado Symphony and Chorus and Majestic Praise Choir. 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday. $15-$69.50. 303-623-7876 or
