BMS Choir and Orchestra to open new season with performance of Elijah at Christ Church

The BMS Choir and Orchestra will perform selected choruses and arias from Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah for the first concert of their 2024/25 season, at Christ Church on Convent Road in Bangkok, on Saturday at 4pm.
The oratorio has been widely popular in the Western world ever since it was premiered by the German composer in England in 1846.
It recounts dramatic biblical episodes of God’s prophet Elijah, who lived in Israel during the reign of the evil King Ahab, who had replaced God with the semitic false deity Baal.
Many years of drought and famine made the people cry out to Baal for help but with no effect. God called on Elijah to demonstrate who was the one true God by performing sacrificial offerings with prayers to both deities to see which would set them on fire. Baal offered no response while God sent spectacular flames, followed by storms and rain.
Mendelssohn drew on his love of the Baroque works of Bach and Handel for inspiration and musical form, but composed this oratorio in the Romantic genre of his age, bringing in new dramatic scoring and instrumentalism which influences the symphonic tradition established shortly before by Beethoven and Schubert, and which is familiar to us today.
The performance will be conducted by BMS music director Margaret Young, with Morakot Cherdchoo-ngarm on organ and James Gower as guest soloist.
Tickets cost 400 baht and are available at the door.
Visit bangkokmusicsociety.com.