This year, The PHS Madrigal Singers are exploring another traditional Christmas era, departing from the renaissance to explore Victorian England. Nineteenth-century England was the origin of many customs we still practice today: Christmas trees, holiday cards, and many of the familiar carols we still sing today. It also provided one of the most famous Christmas stories ever told, Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” which is the basis for the 2023 madrigal dinner, “Fezziwig’s Feast”. The setting of the dinner is the annual Christmas party thrown by Mr. Fezziwig for his family, employees, and friends. Fezziwig charges Ebenezer Scrooge and his fellow clerk, Dick Wilkins, to provide some entertainment, which turns out to be the plot of Dickens’s story, with all the invited guests taking on the traditional roles of the spirit of Christmas past, present, and yet-to-come, the Cratchit family, and many others. The entertainment provides plenty of opportunity for humor, good food, and most importantly, for wonderful holiday music from the past and the present.
