Elizabethan Madrigal Feaste

Thom Furey, a graduate student studying music history from Fredonia, plays the role of the Jester as he reads the rules of dining etiquette at the start of the festive and merry Elizabethan Madrigal Feaste. Socially savvy vignettes, startling spectacles and song, roving rapscallions, fabulous feasting and sundry surprises were presented by the musicians and ne'er-do-wells of the Music Department. Featured performers included the Lords and Ladies of the Harpur Chorale, the Singing Wenches of the Women's Chorus, the Skilled Musicians of the Early Musick Consort, as well as actors and other disreputables. The Feaste includes thick bean soup, a salad of Romaine lettuce, celery, mandarin oranges and craisins, roast beef, chicken with an orange glaze, green beans with mushrooms, rice pilaf, chocolate cake, wine and a wassail toast. This year's king and queen of "Binghamshire" were Ari Hausman, a music and Judaic studies major from Concord, Mass., and Ilyssa Baine, a music major from Syosset.