New York early-music group performs at St. Paul's

The Good Pennysworth Quartet performs at 7 p.m. Friday at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The Good Pennyworths Quartet will make its Toledo debut in a staged concert at 7 p.m. tomorrow in St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 428 North Erie St. The New York City-based early-music group will perform music by John Dowland, Robert Johnson, Thomas Morley, Thomas Campion, and other lute song composers of the Elizabethan era. Dialogue from plays by William Shakespeare will be recited between musical numbers.

Founded in 2007 by Toledo native Garald Farnham, the GPQ comprises sopranos Erika Lloyd and Alane Marco, tenor Christopher Preston Thompson, and baritone and lutenist Farnham. The group is on an eight-city Midwestern tour that includes stops in Columbus, Ann Arbor, and Grand Rapids, Mich.

Admission is free; an offering will be collected. For more information and clips from the group's new CD, check goodpennyworths.com.

• The Toledo Symphony Brass Quintet and organist Barbara Dulmage will present a benefit concert at 7:30 p.m. July 2 in Collingwood Presbyterian Church, 2108 Collingwood Blvd. On the program will be music for organ and brass by Giovanni Gabrieli, as well as works for the quintet and solo organ.

Admission is free. Proceeds from a collection will go to restoration of the church organ, a 1955 Holtcamp instrument with 61 ranks.

• The North Coast Concert Band will perform in the Western Lake Erie region this summer under the direction of Bill Woycitzky. Performances up next include an appearance in Birchard Park, Fremont, at 7 p.m. Sunday; at the Sandusky Veterans' Home at 7 p.m. Tuesday, and in the Sandusky Washington Street Gazebo at 7 p.m. July 1.

Information about the full schedule is available on the band's Web site, www.northcoastconcertband.com.

• The Millstream Singers Men's Chorus is slated to perform in Findlay's Summer Concert Series in Riverside Park at 7:30 p.m. June 30. Founded in 1980, the group first rehearsed in the University of Findlay choir room with music on loan from Bowling Green State University.

Now a member of the Great Lakes Male Chorus Association, the Millstream group has established its own library and an active performance schedule at civic functions and private centers. The group also has sung with the Lima Symphony Orchestra.

The Findlay concert is free because of support from local businesses and foundations.

• Want to sing? The University of Michigan's University Musical Society Choral Union announces its summer series, 7 to 9:30 p.m. to begin July 12 and continue July 26 and Aug. 2. No auditions are required.

Pearl Shangkuan, Calvin College choral professor, will conduct Franz Joseph Haydn's "Mass in Time of War" at the opening session, to be held in the Walgreen Drama Center on the university campus. On July 26, Paul Rardin, University of Michigan choral professor, will lead Ludwig van Beethoven's Mass in C in the Walgreen Center, 1226 Murfin Rd. at Bonisteel Parkway on the U of M North Campus.

Jerry Blackstone, conductor of the Choral Union, will lead an evening of great English anthems on Aug. 2 in Hill Auditorium on the main campus.

On the program will be works by Handel, Parry: Ireland, Boyle, and Vaughan Williams. Scott VanOrnum will accompany at the Hill Aeolian Skinner organ.

Admission is $5 per session and covers musical scores and refreshments. Registration begins at 6:30 p.m. for each session, at the site of the singing.

• Spring for Music, the New York organization which will bring the Toledo Symphony and six other North American orchestras to perform in Carnegie Hall in 2011, has announced a change in the upcoming roster, the inaugural season for this new artistic project.

The Atlanta Symphony, which has previously performed at Carnegie, has withdrawn from the project because of budget constraints. Taking the Atlanta slot will be the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, a Grammy Award-winning touring ensemble based in New York City. Toledo's play date is Saturday, May 7, 2011. Tickets at $25 each go on sale Feb. 21, 2011.

Items for News of Music should be sent to svallongo@toledoblade.com at least two weeks ahead of the performance.