Powell Hall Lobby

The Saint Louis Bach Society held its annual Christmas Candlelight Concert last night. They have been performing this concert since 1951. This was our first time. We along with 2700 other audience members enjoyed the show. It was a full house. I had gotten our tickets only last week, so we were way up at the top, in the nose bleed section. Still the acoustics were excellent and our view wasn’t too bad. The program before intermission was Handel’s Messiah. Members of the Saint Louis Symphony under contract to the Bach Society provided the night’s orchestration. They accompanied four soloists and a 50+ member chorus. I stayed awake through the recitation and did not need to be elbowed awake again for the Hallelujah Chorus. After intermission a 200 member children’s chorus filled all of the aisles in the auditorium for the candlelight procession, even up where we were sitting. The second half of the evening was filled with a selection of religious Christmas carols. Many of them were new to me, but there were also plenty of familiar ones too. There were a few audience participation singalongs too.

Before the concert, we had dinner at the Triumph Grill. Named for the motorcycle brand, the Triumph is part of a motorcycle themed block that includes a couple of dealerships and is capped off by the Moto Museum, a museum dedicated to the motorcycle. In fact the area was once the auto dealership center for Saint Louis. The by today’s standards small showrooms are now only suitable for two-wheelers. Many of the exteriors features in this area were decorated with strings of blue lighting. We couldn’t tell whether the strings were neon or rope LED. We also couldn’t tell you if they are a seasonal installation or if they will be around all year. They were pretty to see.