“Hearing the Apollo Chorus perform Handel’s Messiah — it should really be a bucket list objective for every Chicagoan because it’s really something special,” Alltop said.
Alltop grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and went to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
“I had a pretty different approach to that music that the chorus had been doing for a long time,” he said of taking on the conductor role.
“It is the membership that makes the chorus so extraordinary,” Alltop said.
“Handel’s Messiah, which we do every year, there’s nothing about it that is like, ‘well, okay, we’re doing Messiah again,’ he said.
The chorus will continue its celebration of its 150th anniversary with more performances and events in 2022, including a performance of Bach’s St.