Wichita State's "Messiah" concert was featured in a Nov. 23, issue of The Wichita Eagle.

Go to any other classical music concert, and you’d get a mighty shush if you tried to sing along with the performers.

But at a first-time event for Wichita State University on Nov. 29, audience members are not only encouraged to sing along with Handel’s “Messiah,” they’re downright expected to do so.

“If audience members want to come in and listen, they’re welcome,” said Mark Laycock, director of orchestras at Wichita State. “The spirit of this is that a lot of people have ‘Messiah’ scores at home, and we have scores that they can borrow.”

When audience members enter Wiedemann Hall, they’ll be pointed to seats in the four different vocal ranges. While 10 soloists from Wichita State’s opera and music program will take care of the solos, audience members will be invited to sing along on five or six choruses that Laycock will direct.

“I’ll be conducting the audience as much as I’ll be conducting the orchestra,” said Laycock, who saw success with a similar event while a graduate student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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