The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: The Madison Chamber Choir will perform Menotti’s madrigal fable “The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore” this Friday night. On Tuesday night, The Empire Brass and organist Douglas Major perform at the Overture Center.

A REMINDER: Tomorrow night, Tuesday, May 12, at 7:30 p.m, in Overture Hall at the Overture Center, the Empire Brass (below left) will perform a mostly Baroque program with guest organist Douglas Major (below right). Composers on the program include Johann Sebastian Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude, Henry Purcell and Michael Praetorius. Here is link to the Madison Symphony Orchestra‘s website with the complete program and background information:

http://www.madisonsymphony.org/empire

By Jacob Stockinger

Larger groups and presenters such as the Madison Symphony Orchestra , the Madison Opera, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Wisconsin Union Theater, Edgewood College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music and the University Opera have finished their concert seasons.

Soon the major summer events — the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, the Madison Early Music Festival, the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival and  Opera in the Park — will take place.

But not before smaller groups, who are still winding up their season, have finished.

The Ear has received the follow announcement:

Dear Friends,

I’d like to make you aware of an upcoming concert by the Madison Chamber Choir (below).

The concert is this Friday night, May 15, at 7:30 p.m., in Christ Presbyterian Church, 944 East Gorham Street, in downtown Madison.

Admission is a $10 suggested donation.

The program features “The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore” by the Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti (below), most famous perhaps for establishing the Spoleto Festival and for his Christmas TV opera “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” You can hear excerpts from the “Unicorn” in a YouTube video at the bottom.

The work is described as a “madrigal fable about an odd poet his strange pets and the shallow whims of his faddish neighbors.” Assorted guest chamber instrumentalists will join the choir for the cantata.

The artistic director of the Madison Chamber Choir is Albert Pinsonneault (below), who also teaches at Edgewood College and directs the Madison Choral Project.

Here is a link to the choir’s website about the concert:

http://www.madisonchamberchoir.net/performances/

And here is a link to a sample of the choir’s singing:

http://www.madisonchamberchoir.net/media/