As detailed in my article in yesterday’s Trenton Times (http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/11/classical_music_choral_shenani.html), composer and humorist Peter Schickele will be in Ewing on Dec. 5 for a concert at The College of New Jersey. The concert, titled “Choral Shenanigans and Other Musical Hijinks,” will include a number of works published under his own name and some attributed to his famous pseudonym, P.D.Q. Bach.

Schickele’s “discovery” of this oddest of Johann Sebastian Bach’s twenty odd children has provided him with a comic persona (or perhaps two, since his “Professor Peter Schickele” is an equally amusing, unreliable source) through which he has entertained for decades with a mix of freewheeling parody, excruciating puns and outright, pie-in-the-face slapstick.

It should be stressed that Friday’s event is not a standard P.D.Q. Bach concert. As flabbergasting as it may seem, Schickele is now 79. So there will be no swinging to the stage on a rope, as he once did at Carnegie Hall. Instead, he will oversee the proceedings like something of a dignified lion – though I’m guessing a wry lion – introducing his pieces through brief and informal conversations with Wayne Heisler, TCNJ Associate Professor of Historical and Cultural Studies in Music.

The event will feature performances by the TCNJ Chorale, College Choir, and Wind Ensemble.

Schickele will be my guest this Sunday night on “The Lost Chord.” He’ll talk a bit about his career, the evolution of P.D.Q. Bach, and his upcoming appearance at TCNJ.

I’ve always admired Schickele’s non-P.D.Q. concert music. We’ll get to sample some of it, with of course a few comedy classics thrown into the mix.

Join me for “Schickele, P.D.Q.,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Props to Professor Schickele