Showtime

What: Handel's Messiah

With: Boris Brott, National Academy Orchestra, Arcady Choir, and soloists

When: Saturday, Dec. 15 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Christ's Church Cathedral, 252 James St. N.

Repeat: Sunday, Dec. 16, at 7:30 p.m., St. Christopher's Anglican Church, 662 Guelph Line, Burlington

Repeat: Monday, Dec. 17, at 7:30 p.m., West Highland Baptist Church, 1605 Garth St.

Cost: $25, senior $20, student $10.

Call: 905-525-7664, ext. 16

"Once is never enough."

So says Boris Brott, who presents Handel's Messiah three times this weekend with his National Academy Orchestra, Arcady Choir and soloists Janet Obermeyer, Pam MacDonald, Adam Luther and Alexander Hajek.

By the time that final Amen rings out on Monday night, Brott will have conducted eight Messiahs this season. That tally includes an earlier Messiah in Montreal, plus four on tour in Norway with the Divisi Choir and a Norwegian pickup orchestra.

Longtime choral fans in the city will remember the days, years ago, when the Bach Elgar Choir presented repeat performances of Messiah to packed audiences in Hamilton Place. Though the Brott Festival sold out Hamilton Place for the first local performance of Mahler's Eighth The Symphony of a Thousand this past August, none of Brott's Messiahs will appear in the Great Hall. Instead, the devout will have to content themselves with a peripatetic Messiah who'll turn up in smaller venues such as Christ's Church Cathedral, St. Christopher's Anglican in Burlington and West Highland Baptist on the mountain.

Do we need that many Messiahs in one season? After all, the Bach Elgar Choir performed it under Howard Dyck to completely packed pews at Melrose United less than two weeks ago. Why not present something that Hamilton has rarely heard? Namely, Bach's Christmas Oratorio with its six cantatas performed over the course of three successive nights?

"That is a fantastic idea, except that I don't think it would sell," said Brott over the phone from Los Angeles last week. "I think people love to come to something that they know and feel comfortable with. And the more they know it, the more they find in it. Familiarity breeds continued interest and a desire to hear it more often. It becomes sort of almost like a ritual. Christmas is not the same unless you've heard Messiah."

But not everyone listens to Messiah at Christmas. Consider Ventura County, Calif., where one of Brott's other orchestras, the New West Symphony, is located.

"Interestingly it (Messiah) is not that popular here. We did it once, and it didn't catch fire," said Brott. "It isn't done here that often. I guess it's not part of the culture. Certainly, I tried to export it here having been such a success, feeling this was a no-brainer, that people would come. And it's certainly not because they are less faithful because people tend to be, if anything, more drawn up with their religious beliefs and observances here than they are elsewhere."

Elsewhere, it's not Messiah, but Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that's part of the cultural fabric of the season.

As current Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra music director Jamie Sommerville commented at last Saturday's HPO pops concert, Beethoven's Ninth was performed close to 30 times during one December in Tokyo. Brott, too, knows of this practice. He'll conduct Beethoven's Ninth at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, Italy, Dec. 22 and 23.

Leonard Turnevicius is a music educator and organist.

leonardturnevicius@hotmail.com