New Amsterdam Singers Presents MADRIGALS FOR HARD TIMES, 3/19 & 3/21

By: Mar. 19, 2010
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NEW AMSTERDAM SINGERS PRESENTS MADRIGALS FOR HARD TIMES Program replicates a Madrigal Singers concert of 1938. Performances will be held on Friday, March 19, 2010 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 4 p.m.


When America was in the midst of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt started a program called the Works Projects Administration to get desperate men and women to work. A subsidiary of the WPA was the Federal Music Project, started in 1935 and it was for this organization that Lehman Engel founded the Madrigal Singers. This group of eighteen singers rehearsed daily, giving nearly one thousand concerts, and were paid the standard WPA wage of $23.86 a week. The group lasted almost four years, ending only when Federal support ran out in 1939.

New Amsterdam Singers will replicate a concert given by the Madrigal Singers on March 2, 1938 in New York City. The program, called Madrigals for Hard Times, will be given at the Church of the Holy Trinity, 316 East 88th Street on Friday, March 19th at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 21st at 4 p.m.

The program consists of 4 and 5 voice madrigals and chansons by Renaissance composers, with the addition of a few Twentieth Century a cappella pieces by Debussy and Poulenc. A set of duets will also be sung, as was done in the Madrigal Singers' program. The Renaissance pieces are by English composers Byrd, Farmer, Gibbons, Pilkington, Morley, and Weelkes; Italian composers Monteverdi and Gesualdo; and French composers Costeley, Tessier, and Lassus.

Lehman Engel grew up in Mississippi and eventually ended in New York City, where he devoted his career to music, theatre, editing, and writing several books. He was best known for his many years of involvement with musical theatre. In his autobiography, This Bright Day, he speaks of his years conducting the Madrigal Singers as among his happiest moments in music. He introduced-and captivated-audiences with Renaissance music, which was not commonly heard in concert in the 1930s. Engel conducted an early recording of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, as well as The Student Prince, Oklahoma, Carousel, Showboat, and Pal Joey. He won 6 Tony Awards and was nominated for 4 more.

New Amsterdam Singers
The New Amsterdam Singers was founded in 1968 by Clara Longstreth. A March 2004 issue of The New Yorker called Ms. Longstreth "one of the more imaginative choral
programmers around" and the New Amsterdam Singers "a superb amateur group." The
chorus has performed with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein; American Russian Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall under Leon Botstein; Concordia Orchestra and Anonymous Four in Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light with Marin Alsop at Avery Fisher Hall; and with the Limón Dance Company in Kodály's Missa Brevis.

For further information call 212-568-5948 or go online at www.NASingers.org.

New Amsterdam Singers
Madrigals for Hard Times, The Church of the Holy Trinity
Friday, March 19, 2010 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 4 p.m.

This program replicates the Madrigal Singers New York program of March 1938 sponsored by the WPA during the Great Depression.
Madrigals and chansons by Renaissance and twentieth century composers, including William Byrd, William Costeley, Claude Debussy, John Farmer, Carlo Gesualdo, Orlando Gibbons, Orlando Lassus, Thomas Morley, Claudio Monteverdi, Francis Pilkington, Francis Poulenc, Charles Tessier, and Thomas Weelkes.

 



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