Madeleine Festival: Performances to showcase diversity, artistic integrity

Striving for diversity and a broad across-the-board audience base while maintaining artistic integrity has always been the goal of the Madeleine Festival. It hasn't always been easy, festival co-director Drew Browning told the Deseret Morning News, but he believes that he and the festival committee always manage to succeed.

"We always pull a rabbit out of our hat, but each year we wonder if we're going to be able to do it again," he said in a phone interview.

This year marks the festival's 20th anniversary. Looking at the concert lineup, it's apparent that Browning and his committee have once again achieved the impossible.

The anniversary festival features a group new to the festival, along with soloists and other ensembles who have performed at the Cathedral of the Madeleine's premiere arts event in the past. Their music ranges from the renaissance to the 20th century, from American folk music to black spirituals. The only things missing this year are a visual arts presentation and a humanities lecture.

"They aren't a big draw, not like the concerts, so we decided not to have them this year," Browning said.

Opening the festival today, and making its local debut, is one of Germany's premiere a cappella groups, the Calmus Ensemble. Consisting of four men and a woman, the ensemble, based in Leipzig, sings a wide spectrum of music from Gregorian chant to contemporary works.

"They're actually on tour in the U.S. at the moment," Browning said. "We're excited about having them come here. The purity of their unaccompanied voices in the cathedral will be great."

The four men in the Calmus Ensemble (countertenor Sebastian Krause, tenor Tobias Poche, baritone Ludwig Bohme and bass Joe Roesler) are graduates of Leipzig's renowned St. Thomas Choir School, best remembered today as the school where J.S. Bach was director.

When the four graduated in 1999, they decided to form an ensemble. Two years later, they invited soprano Anja Lipfert to join them in order to expand their range and repertoire. Now the ensemble has branched out far beyond its sacred repertoire and performs experimental jazz and commissions works by today's pre-eminent composers.

For today's concert, however, the Calmus Ensemble will stick closer to its musical roots. The first half of the concert will consist of baroque music by Heinrich Schultz and Bach, while the second half will feature 19th and 20th century German sacred pieces by Felix Mendelssohn, Max Reger, Kurt Thomas and Hugo Distler.