Tales of the Renaissance Era

Magdalena. Photo courtesy of Early Music Now.

Imagine that six musicians, skilled in historic performance on period instruments and wanting to curate a program of French Renaissance music, spend a week together. What might result? For Magdalena, a rising young early music ensemble, the answer is a concert program called Salon: Scenes from a French Landscape. It will be performed Saturday, April 26, as part of the Early Music Now series.

Magdalena was formed in 2022 by artists who all studied historical performance at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Performers are Mira Fu-En Huang, voice and percussion; Sarah Lynn, recorders; Liv Castor, harp; Cole Manel, Renaissance guitar; Cameron Welke, lute; and Niccolo Seligmann, viola da gamba. The group was one of three Emerging Artists of 2024 named by Early Music America. The Milwaukee concert marks the start of Magdalena’s first North American tour.

Huang, who also serves as Magdalena’s administrative director, describes the group as an “early music crossover.” In addition to specializing in particular period instruments, each member has interests and expertise in various genres of music, such as Scottish/Irish traditional music and Medieval fiddling.

Rather than having an artistic director, Magdalena is a self-directed collective. Its members, who reside in five different states and all have day jobs, come together periodically to plan programs and make music. Saturday’s presentation evolved from one of those gatherings.

“Accessibility is a goal of this program,” Huang said. So the group chose to create a blend of music and narration that tells a location-based story.

One source of inspiration for that story is “Margot, labourez les vigne,” a song by French Renaissance composer Jacques Arcadelt (1507-1568). Margot, a peasant girl, receives a bunch of marjoram from a prince. If the herb flowers, the prince promises to make Margot his queen.

A second pillar of the tale is the real-life saga of Queen Margot, wife to Henry IV of France. In the late 16^th century, Queen Margot (who was controversial for any number of reasons) was exiled to the French countryside town of Usson before eventually being welcomed back to the court.

Salon: Scenes from a French Landscape imagines Queen Margot’s return to the court through the eyes of the fictional peasant girl Margot. Compositions performed by the Magdalena musicians and descriptive narration depict the places Queen Margot might have visited during her journey from Usson to Paris: the countryside, cities, cabarets, churches and, finally, the royal palace.

Magdalena uses a unique instrumental grouping that lends itself especially well to melodies that are sung or played by the recorder. The harp, Renaissance guitar, lute, and viola da gamba are “quite plucky,” Huang said. “These instruments display different timbres and textures: the harp is resonant, the guitar is bright, the lute is somewhere in the middle. Together, they provide a certain magic quality.”

Magdalena will perform at 5 p.m. Saturday, April 26, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 914 E. Knapp St. Tickets are available online. There will be a pre-concert lecture at 4 p.m. Parking is available on the street, or in the Lincoln Center of the Arts lot across Marshall St.