Album Notes

Described by one recent audience member as "one of the best chamber ensembles east of the Mississippi," The Festival Choir of Madison is a professional-level, 45-voice choir founded in 1972, made up of performers who love to sing and love to sing well.

The Choir presents a four-concert series in Madison each year as well as touring throughout Wisconsin and abroad (Europe and Japan in recent years).

Many of the recent touring performances have featured the Choir's special Wisconsin sesquicentennial repertoire, "Wisconsin Sings!", which includes several works commissioned by the choir.

The group's inaugural CD, released in September 1998, features this same Wisconsin music.

Four selections from this CD were broadcast in 1999 on a nationwide public radio program of choral music, "First Art," a program that reached over 650,000 choral music lovers.

The Festival Choir also performs regularly on the acclaimed Wisconsin Public Radio broadcast,"Sunday Afternoon Live from the Elvehjem", most recently on October 29, 2000, when the group received a standing ovation from the local audience for its performance of American music.

In the summer of 1999, the choir traveled by invitation to Austria, the first choral ensemble ever asked to participate in the prestigious Ost-West Musikfest.

Received enthusiastically by full houses, the Choir has been invited back for a future tour.