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[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 12/07/06 ] Madrigal songs lift ensemble's spirits By MARK WOOLSEY A Cobb County attorney, she deals with cases of domestic violence, drunken driving and contract disputes. How sweet it is, then, to escape to the soaring harmonies of music that predates the jangle of modern life. Buonodono leads a Renaissance a cappella group called KnightSong, a 10-member ensemble that performs madrigal music, a musical form popular from the 15th through the 17th centuries. The group members have been together for nearly 20 years and have produced a pair of CDs. What's behind the band's fascination with the arcane musical form? Buonodono credits a college concentration on Shakespeare, plus a background in choir and community chorus singing. "Once I started learning the music, I just wanted to learn more of it," she said. "I just love all things Renaissance and fairy tales." The madrigal form is a four- to six-part harmonic exercise, usually unaccompanied by any instrument. It was and is primarily secular in nature; unrequited love is a recurring theme. KnightSong keeps the tradition alive with painstaking devotion to period music and costume. "In this day and age you have to find something that makes your heart happy, or you're going to wind up on therapy or medication," Buonodono says wryly. "This makes my heart happy. "There are times when I grouse on the way to rehearsal, where I feel like I just want to go home and put my feet up, but once I get there and we start singing, it's all good." Buonodono, husband Brad Ketch and a third longtime member, Keith Duggan, broke away from another choral group to form KnightSong in 1989. She says the present configuration includes a bass, two baritones, two tenors, two altos and three sopranos. The group performs in a variety of venues. A concert at the Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C., is coming up, and a public concert in Sandy Springs is set for Sunday. It also performs at private parties and gatherings. Robin Dixon, who joined the group five years ago, says it can take a half-dozen rehearsals to nail down the nuances of a song. He sang in college choruses and took 12 years of piano. "We generally sing in a semicircle so we can sing at each other," he says. "It's a matter of feeling and hearing each other, and hearing where each part is going, whether it's a soprano line or a tenor line. ... It's trial and error ... you will make mistakes along the way, and you just try to get it as close to perfect as you can." Group members hail from all walks of life, from retail manager to active-duty soldier to meteorologist. Group member Rebecca Ballard, a costume design student at the University of Georgia, has worked up several outfits for group members. The task has sent her to several Atlanta fabric stores in search of brocade and other slightly exotic material. The men wear tunics, britches and boots; the women in the group don flowing, multilayered Renaissance-style gowns. Ballard says a 70-mile one-way trip weekly for rehearsals doesn't faze her, even combined with a job, schoolwork and motherhood. Dixon manages nicely to dovetail his involvement with family and a full-time job managing a golf store. The challenge of the art form keeps him motivated, he says. "You don't have instruments covering you up; you are putting yourself out there," he says. During a holiday-themed party in November at a house in Cherokee County, the group performed a number of traditional English Christmas carols, from the familiar "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" to the slightly more obscure "Wexford Carol." Through the year, the group tackles songs of love and other secular topics, mainly in English, though Buonodono says the group has also performed French, Italian, German and even Latin material. As the costumed assemblage sang lustily to the noshing crowd at the Cherokee party, conversation quieted, smiles broke out on faces, and enthusiastic applause greeted the group. That makes the rehearsals after a long day and the painstaking practice worthwhile for Dixon. "It's seeing the smiles break out on the faces," he says. "It's that we can communicate a feeling, whether it's a feeling about Christmas or a spring concert where we're singing about various and sundry other subjects." Want to Go? • KnightSong will perform at 7 p.m. Sunday at Dunlap Hall in Sandy Springs Christian Church at 301 Johnson Ferry Road in Sandy Springs. |
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