The madrigal flourished in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and during this all-too-brief golden age achieved a synthesis of poetry and music still unsurpassed in the choral repertory. Written for two to six voices and usually secular in nature, madrigals provided a contrast to the more serious liturgical motets that were obligatory for church and ceremonial occasions. At once profound in sentiment and effervescent in composition, they could be performed either by voices alone or with light instrumental accompaniment, and were more likely to be heard at feasts, festivals and parties than at formal concerts. The secular nature and informal musical rules of the genre gave the authors a corresponding freedom in their texts, and they wrote about the simple truths of everyday life and common human experience, often producing poetry of considerable beauty and wit that stood on its own even independent of the music. Taxes aside, the two certainties in the cycle of life were -- and are -- sex and death. Thus we present you a program of songs about these fundamentals, many of which inexplicably use birds as a symbolic motif. We hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we enjoy performing them!