Madison Early Music Festival

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Ron Lahr

Incantare

UW-Madison's long-running Early Music Festival continues with master classes and performances all weekend. Where else can you hear music performed on historic wind and brass instruments, including shawms and sackbuts? Piffaro presents “Musical World and Legacy of Charles V: The Spanish-Flemish Connection” at 7:30 p.m., April 22; Incantare performs “Exile: Music of the Early Modern Jewish Diaspora” at 7:30 p.m., April 23; and the All-Festival Concert is “The Happy Journey: Pastime with Good Company” at 2 p.m. on April 24. Concert tickets are available in advance at the Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office (Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.), online, or by calling 608-65-2787, and at the door. Find the full schedule at madisonearlymusic.org.

press release: The Mead Witter School of Music announces a new collaboration and celebration with the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF.) “The Happy Journey: Pastime With Good Company!” from April 22-24, 2022 on the UW–Madison campus in the new Hamel Music Center. 

Featuring performances by Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, Incantare (a new early music ensemble that includes former MEMF participants) and a culminating All-Festival Concert with MEMF and School of Music faculty, students, and participants.

Participants will experience a weekend of music, rehearsals and performances taught and performed by some of the world's finest early music artists. Guest artists for the concert series Piffaro, The Renaissance Band (April 22); Incantare  (April 23), and unique to MEMF, the culminating All-Festival Concert (April 24), featuring participants and faculty from MEMF and the Mead Witter School of Music performing together in the final concert. 

The Madison Early Music Festival is internationally recognized as a top early music festival that features music from medieval, Renaissance and baroque eras from award-winning performers and distinguished faculty. 

During MEMF, participants can register for instrumental, voice, and dance classes ranging from beginner to advanced classes. Instruments include bagpipes, lute, recorder, sackbut, shawms, viola da gamba, and violin. Participants learn from faculty, many who are artists in the guest ensembles. Registration is $150 ($25 for full-time college students) and includes all concerts and social events. Learn more at madisonearlymusic.org.

The MEMF Festival Concert Series takes place in the Hamel Music Center (740 University Avenue) with free pre-concert lectures unless noted otherwise. Individual concert tickets are $20 ($10 students) unless noted otherwise. Concert tickets are available at the Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office (Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.), online, by calling (608) 265-2787, or at the door. 

Friday, April 22, 7:30 pm Piffaro, The Renaissance Band | piffaro.org

“Musical World and Legacy of Charles V: The Spanish-Flemish Connection”

The famed traveling musical establishments of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V included a star-studded roster of composers: Jakob Obrecht, Alexander Agricola, Heinrich Isaac, Josquin des Prez in the Low Countries; Christóbal de Morales, Mateo Flecha, Francisco Guerrero, Antonio de Cabezon in Spain. They interacted to produce an international language of Renaissance polyphony, a musical legacy of legendary proportions.

Piffaro’s performance will feature historic winds and brass instruments, including recorder, shawms, sackbuts, bagpipes, and more. Performers include Joan Kimball, Bob Wiemken, Priscilla Herreid, Grant Herreid, Greg Ingles, and Erik Schmalz with guests Héloïse Degrugillier, Fiona Last, and Daniel Swenberg.

Saturday, April 23, 7:30 pm Incantare | incantaremusic.com

“Exile: Music of the Early Modern Jewish Diaspora” 

EXILE highlights Jewish music as it shifted and melded with traditions in early modern Europe.  Highlighting Jewish musicians, the non-Jewish composers they influenced, and composers who inspired innovations in Jewish composition through the mutual influences of the early modern European Jewish experience and the implications of diaspora on Jewish artistic legacy.

Performers include Cynthia Keiko, Alice Cullin-Ellison, violins; Ben David Aronson, Garrett Lahr, Liza Malamut, sackbut; and Naomi Gregory, organ with guests Chelsie Propst, soprano, Andrew Rader, countertenor, Garrett Eucker, tenor, Kyle Sackett, bass.

Sunday, April 24, 1:00 pm MEMF All-Festival Concert 

“The Happy Journey: Pastime with Good Company” 

The 2022 All-Festival Concert will feature works that represent the themes of our past festivals. This final event celebrates MEMF’s 22 years of inspiring participants and audiences of all ages with a love for early music, the integration of the festival into the Mead Witter School of Music, the retirement of Co-Artistic Director Cheryl Bensman-Rowe and other MEMF Faculty, and the new early music leaders as they continue the legacy of historical performance practices that they learned at MEMF.

ALSO:

Friday, April 22, 12:00 pm First Unitarian Church, 900 University Bay Drive MEMF Fringe Concert

Jori Vinikour | www.joryvinikour.com

Harpsichord Recital | Free

About the Madison Early Music Festival | madisonearlymusic.org

A program of the UW–Madison Mead Witter School of Music, the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) was established in 2000 to provide an opportunity for musicians, scholars, teachers, and early music enthusiasts to gather and exchange information and ideas about medieval, Renaissance and baroque music–and to bring acclaimed early music artists and scholars to Madison. 

MEMF 2022 is presented by the Mead Witter School of Music in collaboration with campus partner the Division of the Arts.

Funds are generously provided by the William J. Wartmann Endowment for the Madison Early Music Festival, the Jane Graff Bequest for Madison Early Music Festival, and Friends of the Madison Early Music Festival.