Spring Concert

Seriously Funny

Sunday, May 13, 2018
First Congregational Church, 1609 University Avenue, Madison

1:30pm Choraliers, Con Gioia, and Capriccio (girlchoirs)
4:00pm Purcell, Britten, and Holst (boychoirs) featuring Ragazzi
7:00pm Cantilena, Cantabile, and Ragazzi (high school ensembles)

This spring, Madison Youth Choirs singers are exploring the unexpected ways that elements of humor, from irony and incongruity to improvisation and timing, are reflected in a wide variety of classical and contemporary musical compositions. We’re learning that music, like humor, is a kind of language, operating with its own sense of logic, patterns, and conventions that composers can twist to surprise us and take our musical journey to new places. As we study the complexity of humor as a mode of creative expression, we are discovering the power of satire, wit, and misdirection to help us reexamine our assumptions, musical and otherwise. In our culminating concert series, our singers will present works including Handel’s “No, di voi non vo’fidarmi,” Timothy Takach’s “I WIll Howl,” “Fugue for Tinhorns” from Guys and Dolls, and the second movement of Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. The boychoirs will also present a world premiere work by Wisconsin-based composer Scott Gendel.

Tickets available at the door
$10 general admission • $5 students age 7–18
Free for children under 7

This project is made possible with support from American Girl’s Fund for Children, BMO Harris Bank, the Kenneth A. Lattman Foundation and Dane Arts with additional Funds from the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, the Evjue Foundation, charitable arm of the Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation. This project is also made possible by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with additional funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.