We all have Christmas rituals; practices we incorporate into our personal experiences of the holidays.  For me, it used to be reading all three books of The Lord of the Rings. This has naturally morphed into watching all three extended-version DVD’s – a significant investment of time, but far less than reading the entire trilogy was! Yet another reason to be thankful for and to Peter Jackson.

If your holiday ritual entails music, chances are it includes Handel’s Messiah, a glorious Baroque musical tribute to the celebration of Jesus’ birth. But – no disrespect intended but I’m tellin’ you now: if you haven’t heard the Jazz-Gospel Messiah, you ain’t heard Handel’s Messiah!

Almost 300 years ago Georg Frideric Handel composed his legendary Messiah and the accompanying Hallelujah Chorus, and it’s been thrilling audiences ever since. About 30 years ago Maestra Marin Alsop, chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony, undertook to re-invent this masterpiece and, with co-arrangers and -orchestrators Bob Christianson and Gary Anderson, created a new sensation, TOO HOT TO HANDEL.  They recognized that classical European liturgical music is not, as some may believe, antithetical to more modern forms like jazz and gospel, or even rap and scat. Alsop is by no means the first to modify Handel’s work: during Handel’s lifetime, many performers (including Mozart) sought to embellish, ornament, and improvise … and improvisation is, by its very nature, jazz-like.

Even the original, unadorned Messiah is beautiful, but when some years ago Alsop informed a friend she was doing Messiah their response was, ‘yeah, I like the ending with the hallelujahs, but the rest is boring’. Seeing that this was accurate but not right, Alsop began work on what would be TOO HOT TO HANDEL, and ever since it premiered in 1993 audiences have been standing and clapping and shouting and dancing in the aisles!  Certainly, they were doing all that and more last weekend at the Auditorium Theatre!

The orchestra included guest artists from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with George Stelluto as Music Director and Conductor. Fred Nelson III, Director of the Chicago Collective Rhythm Section, manned the organ while Alvin Waddles made magic on the piano. Drummer Quin Anderson, Joseph Woolfalk on electric guitar, and Sharay Reed playing bass (both string and electric) transported the classical orchestra into jazz-hood (jazz-ness? jazz-dom? whatever). The choir (more than 80!) was directed by Bill Fraher, and they were fabulous, swaying and rocking, clapping and nodding and ultimately dancing along as joy filled the Auditorium.

The three solo vocalists were spectacular: alto Karen Marie Richardson, soprano Alfreda Burke and tenor Rod Dixon. Dixon in particular was absolutely breathtaking! He did so much more than sing – he spun and leapt, flung his arms out in ecstasy and up in supplication; his face mirrored the emotion of each piece. His free-spirited performance gave the audience license to be just as impetuous and unconstrained.

I’m going to back up here, as the venue deserves note.  The Auditorium Theatre was built in 1898 and certainly looks it! The marble-tiled floors dip and slant; marking the stairs with tape makes them easier to see but no less erratic and uneven … but I’m focusing on this because I personally have some ambulatory challenges; if your walk is steady, you’ll see these details as a feature rather than a defect, because the beautiful features of the Aud are abundant. It was, as I said, built in 1898, before budgets overruled beauty. The result is an enormous edifice of surpassing elegance and grandeur that simply couldn’t happen in 2025. If you’ve never seen it, find a way to do so. It’s a splendid Chicago landmark.

TOO HOT TO HANDEL is not an overlong production, but it’s so lavish that it felt like we’d been there for hours before Intermission: through Behold, a Virgin Shall Conceive; For Unto Us a Child is Born, culminating in the Angels singing Glory to God – Part I was so lush that we were a bit confused. People were taking up their coats and making their way up the aisles – was this Intermission or was it the End? But wait! we hadn’t heard the Hallelujah chorus! so this simply could not be the end. And sure enough, the performers returned after their well-deserved break. Part II opened with Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion; Behold the Lamb of God; The Trumpet Shall Sound; culminating finally with King of Kings, Lord of Lords … and He shall reign forever and ever … HALLELUJAH! The orchestra was rockin’, the chorus was dancing on the risers, the soloists were giving their all, the audience was on its feet applauding, and we were all suffused with wonder and joy. HALLELUJAH!  

Rivalling the Hallelujah Chorus was a truly magnificent piano solo, where Alvin Waddles elicited cheers and laughter with an extensive medley, wandering from Gershwin to Celine Dion, from pop to rock to rap … a truly stunning performance.

I need to give a shoutout here to Light Designer Matt Miller and Video Director John Petrosky, for the videography was stellar. Even from orchestra seats there were so many performers onstage it was impossible to see individuals. Petrosky was on it, though: a huge screen was mounted behind the choir, providing us closeups of soloists, conductors, and various artists. I just thought of it now because of how superbly the videos followed Waddles’ hands on the keys!

Jazz and gospel are predominantly associated with African American artists, and that was certainly reflected in TOO HOT TO HANDEL. Most (all?) of the soloists, voice and instrumental, were African American, and it’s no coincidence that TOO HOT TO HANDEL appears on the Chicago stage on or around Martin Luther King Day. TOO HOT TO HANDEL is, like Kwanzaa, a singularly African-American holiday celebration.

The original Messiah is unquestionably a beautiful work of art, but it is also ponderous and staid – like most European Christian music and ceremony it’s measured, methodic, orthodox … in a word, white. Alsop’s genius was to maintain all the splendor of Handel’s Messiah while uniting it with the joyous spirit of modern gospel music and the unconstrained freedom of jazz. She forged a merger between the restraint of traditional European (white) liturgical music and the exuberance of the gospel (Black) style of worship, utilizing the whimsy and spontaneity of jazz. As my companion said, “imagine how you’d feel upon learning that ‘unto us a Child is given.’ That sort of news inspires exultation and jubilation!” TOO HOT TO HANDEL renders that joy without losing the elegance of Handel’s original. Hallelujah!

There were only two performances, Friday January 10 and Saturday January 11. However, TOO HOT TO HANDEL has reappeared on the Chicago stage every year since 2006, on or around Martin Luther King Day, so mark your calendars for mid-January 2026! The production will be back, and it is VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.