Designed and directed by Grant Herreid, the program features a narrator, loosely based on Thomas Coryat, an English seventeenth century travel writer, who, as a young man, travels throughout Europe in search of music.
Concert
Advanced Loud Band and Voice Intensive Concert
Ensemble participants perform a program based on this year’s theme. Loud band instruments include cornetto, shawm, sackbut, and dulcian. This event is free and open to the public. No pre-concert lecture.
Calmus – Faith and Madness
With a perfect blend of sound and precision, the vocal ensemble Calmus creates a program of a dialogue between sacred music masterpieces followed by madrigals that portray madness, love, war, and loneliness. Composers include Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Heinrich Schütz, Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Gesualdo, Clément Janequin, and others.
MEMF Participant Concert
Madison Early Music Festival workshop participants perform in ensembles that have been coached by faculty artists throughout the week of the Festival. This event is free and open to the public. No pre-concert lecture.
Libera Nos: Music on Tribulation & Salvation
MEMF 2019 fringe concert performed by APERI ANIMAM.
HESPERUS – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
HESPERUS creates the soundtrack for the 1923 silent film The Hunchback of Notre Dame with music from fourteenth and fifteenth century France. Compositions include French and Burgundian music from 1300-1500, featuring Guillaume de Machaut, Jehan l’Escurel, Guillaume Dufay, as well as lesser-known composers such as Vaillant, Morton, and Borlet.
Mystery and Mirth: A Spanish Christmas
Come celebrate Christmas in July! Free admission, donations accepted at the door. Fringe concert by Schola Cantorum of Eau Claire.
Alchymy Viols – American at Versailles
An original ballet masque of French baroque music, dance, and drama written and choreographed by Sarah Edgar, featuring soprano, Carrie Henneman Shaw. The American on the Grand Tour encounters the exotic world of French baroque manners, dress, dance and love.
Dark Horse Consort – Wanderlust
Follow the misadventures of an English gentleman as he embarks on a continental Grand Tour adventure in search of love and fulfillment. Our hero’s travelogue includes springtime consort songs by Ferrabosco and Byrd, Widmann’s beguiling German dances dedicated to women, the wooing songs of the Italian gondolieri, and sultry airs espangnol.
Just Bach
A monthly concert series in Madison celebrating the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Admission is free, with a goodwill donation accepted at the door.