The Mississippi School for Mathematics orchestra and choir will host a madrigal dinner on April 23, with students performing songs and skits based on the Middle Ages for entertainment while guests eat a provided meal.

“Our Madrigal Dessert concert features students in period costumes performing music from the Medieval and Renaissance Periods during a theatrical performance,” Band Director Dawn Barham said. “Madrigal scripts are filled with gags, jokes, humor and the like. Often, references to the modern are used for [comedic] effect.”

This will be the second year the Blue Notes will host the dinner. Though scheduling changes have made this year difficult in terms of practicing, Barham says the performance will be a success through their hard work. “We are transforming the PAC into a castle dining hall! We have been working in and out of class on music preparation, dance choreography, authentic Renaissance vocal and instrumental performance technique, sword fighting, set preparation and costuming,”  she said.

Barham gives copious credit to the students, as they have not only worked hard preparing their performances, but prepared the entire script themselves. Barham calls the script “hilarious” and says students “did not disappoint!”

Choir member Landry Filce is looking forward to the performances as well. Filce compared the two very different semesters she has experience in choir, as the Blue Notes focus on blues and jazz performances in the fall semester, before switching to Renaissance music for the spring semester.

Filce said, “I had a lot of fun preparing for both of them! They’re inherently different, in that the Madrigal [Dinner] is more of a play and the blues/jazz thing was a choral/band performance. I like to act, so I liked that part of this semester, but I liked touring with Sights and Sounds a lot last semester.” Filce says that she is positive that students and faculty are sure to enjoy this performance.