Singing the "Messiah" in a Cathedral

Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland is a resplendent Gothic edifice built with "Old Money" from the wealthy families who once attended there in its heyday. It is still a vibrant inner city Episcopal Cathedral that has wonderful music programs, including their Wednesday afternoon "Brown Bag" lunch time series. In December, that turns into a community "Messiah Sing" where the audience is the chorus. They still have an orchestra and soloists, but those who attend and choose to sing sit in their respective vocal sections: soprano, alto, tenor and bass. My mom and I went up today for this "Messiah Sing". She did not want to participate, but rather, just wanted to listen, but I was more than eager to sing in the alto section, so I grabbed my old Edition Coopersmith copy of the "Messiah" score and off we went. I was able to score an excellent seat in the alto section and met some wonderful fellow singers. It was quite an experience to sing in such an amazing environment. I found the acoustics to be a little difficult at times due to just a tiny delay in the sound coming from the soprano and bass sections in the transept and the slight echo effect of singing in a massive cathedral, but other than that, it was quite an exhilarating experience and I can't wait until next year! I haven't sung "The Messiah" in years and I have been practicing the past week or so with my iPod and score to restore my familiarity with the piece. I still managed to make a few mistakes as we sang today, but it was still a lot of fun and I am already making plans to attend again next year. I haven't been to a "Messiah sing-along" in several years, and the last one was in a church up in Hiram that I had hoped they would repeat, but evidently they did not do it again. But this "Messiah" sing at Trinity is an annual thing, so that's nice to be able to know and anticipate each year. Fortunately, they do not do the entire Oratorio and they only did the Christmas section (Part 1) with the "Hallelujah" chorus from the end of Part II and "Behold I tell you a Mystery" and "The Trumpet Shall Sound" from Part III, which I found odd, because those sections of Part III are not typically a part of the Christmas section, but it was still a delight to hear the trumpet sounding in that magnificent cathedral. I definitely plan to go back next year and do this again. What fun!