Marvel in the Midwest

But Madison was hardly an early- music.” Bowles is amazed by how the serve as artists who also lead workshops music mecca, and, indeed, most residents event has been able to build a stand- for everyone from beginners to pre- probably didn’t know anything about out profile in a city flush with festivals professionals. It’s a formula the Rowes the specialized field. Put simply, it was of all kinds. “The community has instituted at the beginning and have a big risk. The couple moved ahead really, really embraced this festival,” continued all along. “If that were to anyway, recruiting Chelcy Bowles, who she said. change very much,” Bowles said, taught in the University of Wisconsin’s The summer event established “it wouldn’t be the same festival.” Division of Continuing Education, as itself as one of this country’s most It also doesn’t hurt that the festival a co-founder and the festival’s program important early-music festivals by takes place at the University of director (essentially executive director). differentiating itself right from the start. Wisconsin-Madison in partnership And the threesome’s initiative has clearly Not only is it situated away from the with its Mead Witter School of paid off. From July 6-13, the Madison two coasts, where similar offerings Music. The university provides both Early Music Festival will mark its are mostly found, but it also focuses 20th-anniversary season. mainly on medieval and Renaissance “It went fast,” Bensman-Rowe said, music and not the more prominent “and it’s a happy surprise that it’s been Baroque era. so successful. A lot of nice things have While other festivals might offer happened because of it. We’ve had some of the components available in students who have come who really Madison, few if any present a concert didn’t know much about early music, series with national and international and now they have careers in early early-music performers who in turn MARVEL Hesperus musicians Grant Herreid, Priscilla Herreid, Tina Chancey, and Nell Snaidas are shown performing a live accompaniment to the 1923 silent film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The ensemble will do so again at the 2019 Photos by Bruce Dale and Michael G. Stewart Madison Early Music Festival. IN THE Piffaro artistic co-director Photo by Katrin Talbot Robert Wiemken MIDWEST: hen soprano Cheryl Bensman-Rowe and fine facilities, such as the 700-seat Mills MADISON bass-baritone Paul Rowe decided in Au- Concert Hall, where most concerts take EARLY MUSIC gust 1999 to establish a summer festi- place, as well as a handsome campus that Wval devoted to early music in Madison, Wisconsin, includes the historic Memorial Union, FESTIVAL the city of some 250,000 inhabitants had two things with its beers, bratwursts, and terrace seating overlooking Lake Mendota. By KYLE MACMILLAN going for it: a major university with a picturesque “I don’t know of any other university in lakefront campus and proximity to the substantial the country where they encourage you population centers of Milwaukee and Chicago. to sit by a lake and drink beer,” said In addition, the Midwest had no comparable event, so lutenist Grant Herreid, who first the field was open. “We just thought it was a perfect loca- performed at the festival in 2002 as a tion, and the facilities were great,” said Bensman-Rowe, member of Philadelphia-based Piffaro. “So, the setting is really pretty cool.” a Grammy Award winner in 1999 with Steve Reich and Also cited by returnees to the festival Musicians. “And we had a lot of contacts in the world is its unusual sense of community, which of early music, so we thought we would try it.” is generated in large part by the festival’s distinctive mix of students, teachers, Madison Early Music Festival founders amateurs, and professionals, who are Photo by Kathy Wittman Photo by Katrin Talbot Cheryl Bensman-Rowe and Paul Rowe 26 | EMA g may 2019 | 27 encouraged to commingle as much a Grammy or has performed with a to one concentrated week, giving each instance, we were in Germany. This way, Milwaukee rents a bus each a year to possible are both the festival’s free as possible. Heightening this collegial group like Piffaro.” festival a theme that ties all of the concert the ‘Grand Tour’ is pretty wide open.” bring some of its fans to one of access to facilities on the University feeling is the All-Festival Choir and Liza Malamut, a nationally known and educational offerings together, such The festival has presented four the concerts. of Wisconsin campus—“It’s huge,” th Orchestra, which Sarah Marty, program exponent of the sackbut, an early form as The Glories of 17 -Century Venice in esteemed touring ensembles and solo The 2019 lineup will feature Wanderlust, Bensman-Rowe said of that perquisite— director since 2015, calls the “jewel in of the trombone, is a big fan of the 2004 and El Nuevo Mundo—The Age of artists each year, including Dutch showcasing the San Francisco-based Dark as well as a shift in its administrative our crown.” festival, especially its consistency. “It’s Exploration in the New World in 2011. recorder player Marion Verbruggen and Horse Consort; American in Versailles, an structure in 2014, a year before Bowles All the teachers and students kind of magical that way,” she said. “It “We’re academics,” Bensman-Rowe said Quicksilver. These concerts were such a original ballet masque of French Baroque retired. During much of its history, the involved in the workshops, which has a quality to it that is really constant, with a laugh. “We just like the way success at the beginning that organizers music with the Alchymy Viols from festival operated under the auspices of reached maximum capacity in 2018, and I think it’s the location, too.” She it pulls all the elements together. sometimes ran out of printed programs. Indianapolis and dancer Sarah Edgar; the Division of Continuing Education, are required to take part in the ensemble. first came to the festival in 2006, when When you pick a theme, it’s fascinating. “We just got this rolling, and it took Virginia-based Hesperus providing live but Bensman-Rowe worked to move it It is composed of 60 or so vocalists and she discovered Spanish Renaissance You get the idea, and the arteries that go off immediately,” Bowles said. “We accompaniment to the 1923 silent film to the Division of the Arts, which has an assortment of instruments including composers she had never heard of, such out are really interesting to see how it violas da gamba, recorders, and lutes. as Francisco Guerrero and Cristóbal de encompasses things through history and Herreid oversaw the ensemble the Morales, and met other students who musical activity.” last three seasons, and he will take on have become friends and colleagues. The 20th-anniversary season will revolve the task again in 2019. “Grant is able While a trombone major at the Eastman around the noted travel writer Thomas to figure out how to include everybody School of Music, Malamut took a few Coryat, who penned a 1611 book titled of all levels and all the instruments and lessons with noted sackbut player Coryat’s Crudities that chronicled a voices,” Bensman-Rowe said. “It just Greg Ingles, who recommended she journey he undertook to France, Italy, makes things very special.” try out the festival. “It was, honestly, and Germany, much of it on foot. The Rehearsals are held every day, and the transformative,” said Malamut, who volume helped popularize what came to event culminates with the all-festival returned to Madison last year as a be known as the “Grand Tour,” a kind concert, which this year is titled Musical faculty member and performer. “It was of de rigueur trip across Europe for Postcards from the Grand Tour. “It’s a a concentrated week of learning everything upper-class young men. The concert pretty amazing opportunity,” said Marty, and anything about early music. It really series will feature music from places a singer who also teaches arts management did change the course of my life.” along Coryat’s itinerary, and daily lectures at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, When the festival began in 2000, will cover related literature and other “to get a chance to be next to some of it spanned two weeks, but organizers cross-genre topics. “I thought it would these faculty members, to have your quickly realized that was too much. So, be a fun way to not be in just one place,” section leader be someone who has won in the third season, they pared it back Bensman-Rowe said. “Like last year, for Photo by Mary Ladoni The Madison Early Music Festival’s 2018 All-Festival Orchestra were actually kind of shocked, and for The Hunchback of Notre Dame; and staff to assist the festival with such a couple of years, we were unprepared Faith and Madness, a program presented essentials as marketing, graphic design, for how the community supported it.” by Calmus, a vocal quintet from and website management. The concerts now typically draw Leipzig, Germany. “Everything got much easier,” Bowles about 450 people, with luminaries like The festival’s annual budget has said, “because all the work was spread Anonymous 4 attracting even bigger grown from around $60,000 in 1999 out—the administrative aspects were crowds. The audiences are composed of to $120,000 in 2019, with most of the spread over many people in the Division local residents and people taking part funds covering the part-time salaries of of the Arts.” in the workshops, as well attendees who the three directors and the fees of the In the festival’s first year, 29 people come from Chicago, Minneapolis, and visiting artists and teachers.

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