Handel's Messiah

Saturday night we attended a performance of Handel's Messiah which was performed by the International Festival Chorus and Orchestra. The venue was the Forbidden City Concert Hall. The event is sponsored by JPMorgan. It was a nice start to the holiday season.

We attended the concert last year and it was one of our more memorable adventures as a new resident of Beijing. The adventure from last year is chronicled in a blog entry. This year being more experienced we did it right, sorry AF. We arranged transportation in advance, went to a nice restaurant with friends prior to the concert, and lastly we had a parking pass which got us up close to the concert hall. It was a bitterly cold night similar to last year.

This is a picture taken just outside the Huangcheng Shifu Restaurant.

We went to the event with co-workers, their spouses, and some out-of-town guests to Huangcheng Shifu which serves imperial Chinese food. The restaurant was really nice and it was just outside the Forbidden City and close to the concert hall.

The group under a gate in the parking lot near the Forbidden City Concert Hall

The concert seemed to go much quicker this year. They brought in a harpsichord which had a sound board from the 1500's. The conductor of the performance also played the harpsichord