Last semester, Hillsdale College’s choir and orchestra filled the sanctuary of Christ Chapel with the resounding beauty of Handel’s Messiah.
Music, like philosophy or literature when they are real, calls us up. In the performance of sacred music—especially music as enduring and exalted as Messiah—students encounter what Plato called the harmony of the cosmos, and what the Christian tradition knows as the redemptive story of mankind.
Just as there are laws in nature, so there is an order in beauty. Handel set the words of Scripture to music so that the truth might be not only spoken, but sung—and in being sung, participated in and loved. Hillsdale College alumna Nicole Ault writes convincingly on this in the Wall Street Journal.
You can watch a short video about the performance here and the full performances here and here. That is the life of this place. We pursue truth and beauty in word, in deed, and also in song.