The Kennedy Center Messiah Sing-Along Experience

There is a moment every December when Christmas arrives for me. This year, it was during the 53rd Annual Kennedy Center Messiah Sing-Along, drawn from Handel’s oratorio and brought to life under the baton of Dr. Nancia D’Alimonte, Music Director.

^{Music Director, Nancia D’Alimonte, delights in performer excellence and audience participation}

Nancia’s conducting felt both deeply personal and profoundly communal. She engaged each musician with intention, while simultaneously holding the entire hall in shared purpose. Four choirs, including members of the New Dominion Chorale, Northern Virginia Community Chorus, Thomas Circle Singers, and Vocal Arts of Fairfax joined forces with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, and a hall of approximately 2,500 singing audience participants.

Nancia wrote on her social media, “Last evening, I conducted the Messiah Sing-Along at the Kennedy Center to a very enthusiastic audience who sang their hearts out! It was an opportunity to bring joy to so many who really needed it . . . and that is what happened – a joyful event! “

This year, I managed to keep my place in the score and sing my alto line. I was certainly not perfect, but I managed to stay faithfully focused. Some passages live in memory. Others still required careful reading and courage. There are always fewer altos than sopranos at a sing-along. There were moments when the alto came in alone. I hoped to hear another alto nearby but trusted the line. The sopranos around us were extraordinary. Their voices soared, bright and fearless. I wondered what it might feel like to have that vocal ability.

Music notation at first felt like a foreign language:  dots, lines, measures, rests (I do appreciate consecutive rests). Eventually, I stepped into the music.

My husband sang tenor, as did the gentleman behind us, who began beautifully and gradually shifted into something closer to projection than tone. Afterward, my husband and I shared a laugh about our own voices. My second alto is lower than his tenor. Humor is a necessary part of communal singing. Everyone offers what they have, and somehow it makes a joyful sound.

The soloists were exceptional partners in Nancia’s musical conversation. Each soloist demonstrated artistry anchored in trust. They met Nancia with intelligence, precision, and warmth. Their collaboration lifted us all.

Nancia’s personal journey is remarkable. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Mendi Rodan. She also holds a Master of Music in horn performance from Ithaca College and studied horn at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Brussels, Belgium. She was a professional horn player with the Oshawa Symphony in Canada.

Nancia recently joined the Board of Directors of the John S. Mulholland Family Foundation, supporting food assistance for the working poor of Washington, D.C. She and her husband, Giancarlo, live in Falls Church. They are avid scuba divers, travelers, cooks, and devoted companions to their delightful moyen poodle, Lupo.

Credentials are not what made the evening extraordinary.

What was most moving was the text. It was the Biblical narrative of promise, struggle, prophecy, and hope that was sung not as performance, but as recognition. Thousands of voices carried it forward: steady, reverent, and joyful.

This is when Christmas arrived for me. It arrived not through decorations or ritual, but through music, meaning, and shared breath.

We left the hall grateful, lifted, and were reminded that Handel still takes us to great heights then gently brings us home in celebration of the meaning of the season.