[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 12/4/02 ]

Knightsong plays olden harmonies, haunting melodies

By MARK WOOLSEY
For the Journal-Constitution

Close your eyes, listen and imagine being transported to a Renaissance-era nobleman's hall. Before you, elaborately clad minstrels weave haunting melodies by ruddy firelight.

Open your eyes and see a group of mainly north metro suburbanites who deal with long commutes, juggle careers and families and have to make mortgage payments.

But add music -- and costumes -- and this group of almost a dozen tenors, basses/baritones, altos and sopranos transports one to a bygone era where sweeping ballads of love, good times, war and religious faith were sung.

Madrigals are a mostly unaccompanied vocal music form featuring independent and contrasting voice parts. The style flourished in Renaissance England and Italy as entertainment for the gentry.

In the United States, the music's archaic phrasing and a cappella approach have made it a favorite for holiday performances.

One of the established local madrigal groups, Knightsong, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 13 at Sandy Springs Christian Church.

It's a homecoming of sorts for the singers, who rehearsed for years in north Fulton County. In addition, a couple of the players are active at Sandy Springs Christian.

It's also an opportunity for Knightsong, which dates from the late 1980s, to bring lilting four- to eight-part melodies to the public. And the group has a royally good time doing it.

Pat Buonodono, a lawyer and founding member, says madrigal is "the challenge of singing a cappella without any instrument or anything to cover it up.

"What you hear is what you get. It's that challenge that keeps bringing us back."

Demonstrative show~

Brad Ketch, a warehouse supervisor and another original member, grew up singing classical and church music. He likes madrigals for what they are not.

"Not many people are drawn to it because it doesn't have a beat," said Ketch. "It's not always something interesting, and that's part of the job as performers to make what we do interesting for the people listening. There's nothing to watch other than you and your expressions as you sing."

Knightsong thus holds forth in hearty and demonstrative style, members garbing themselves in gowns, high boots, colorful vests, tights and peasant-style shirts. They're quick to offer audiences sometimes offbeat tales about the long-ago origins of their tunes, which are based frequently on secular stories or fables.

The group's concert will feature both familiar and unfamiliar arrangements of standard holiday favorites, plus more obscure selections including Spanish carols, Christmas lullabies and the English "Boar's Head Carol." It's a tale of medieval knights, war and chivalry. . . . Not!

"It stems from the late 1400s," said singer Brent Bass, a supervisor at the Weather Channel Radio Network, who researched the "Boar's Head" tale.

"Supposedly a scholar at Queen's College at Oxford was walking through the woods one day and was attacked by a wild boar. He defended himself with the only thing at hand, a volume of Aristotle's writings. He jammed it into the boar's mouth, and the boar choked on it."

Modern approach~

The expired beast was served at a subsequent holiday-type feast, forming the basis for the carol.

While the emphasis is on medieval songs of love and merriment, the approach is thoroughly present-day. Limited to one rehearsal a week by busy schedules, group members record their best efforts and practice during automobile commutes to learn their lines and help groove in nuances of style.

Group members range in age from the late 20s to retirement and come from all walks of life, Buonodono said. What unites them is a love of vocal and other music, and a history of playing and singing, dating back to childhood bands and lessons.

Group members have performed at Renaissance fairs, and at an Olde English festival at an area church, said Buonodono, plus appearing as a finalist in the "A Cappella Atlanta" event in the mid-1990s.

In addition to the north Fulton appearance, the group also plans caroling this season at Town Center at Cobb and the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C.

The group is busy, and having fun.

As Buonodono put it, "You can have a horrible day and come into rehearsal and growl at people, but when you sing and make that beautiful music, it cleanses your soul. And that's what we hope it does for the audience, too."