But "Eight Songs for a Mad King" is more than avant-garde. It's a journey into the mind of a madman. It's also a difficult proposition for any chamber orchestra that plays the music and even more so for the lone singer who plays the voices inside the head of wretched King George III.

Baritone Timothy Jones will sing the part of the king, whose only respite from mental illness was teaching birds to sing. The instruments represent characters in his mind.

British composer Peter Maxwell Davies' text calls for a violin to be smashed at a crucial moment. Stage director Marc Verzatt, who is responsible for interpreting the score and libretto and creating this production's look and feel, says he's not sure whether he will do that. But the music can't help but stir emotions, he said.

The Utah Symphony will perform the piece next weekend at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center as part of its revived but still brief chamber series.

Back from a yearlong hiatus, the four-concert chamber series includes two (it did works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Shih-Hui Chen and John Adams in October) that are, well, different from what you'd expect from the Utah Symphony. In this case, a lot different.

First performed in 1969, "Mad King" is "quite unlike any music that I think anyone is used to," opera veteran Verzatt said in an interview from Connecticut, where he teaches at Yale.

You may recall from American History that George was king when America ditched British rule. His madness - actually bouts of temporary dementia brought on by the blood disease porphyria - couldn't have helped his reputation with the colonists, said Jeff Bram, director of symphony artistic planning for the Utah Symphony and Opera. It's a treatable disease now, but during the 18th century, "There was only one diagnosis for this kind of illness: crazy."

Bram studied "Mad King" in music school and has wanted to arrange a performance ever since. "It's a unique, very singular, very important individual piece. Because of that uniqueness, it needs to be performed."

Verzatt, who has been working on this production since last September, said he fell in love with the piece and its central character, whom he has studied extensively by now. During the king's delusional episodes, his physician isolated him, essentially locking him away until they had passed. "It was the worst possible thing they could do to him," Verzatt said. "He was aware of what was happening to him - it was not as if he was living in this schizophrenic world."

The 30-minute production's set is relatively simple, with the six chamber musicians on platforms of various heights. There will be a couple of costume changes as the king goes through the motions of a life he no longer has. "He would dress as if he were going to be holding court while he was confined. He made a fuss about people who were going to see him, who of course never came," Verzatt said.

"It's terribly sad. He's somebody who's trying so desperately to connect with things that were in his world while he was healthy."

The king's loneliness and panic come through in the libretto, written by Randolph Stow and based on George III's words. The singing, which is rarely melodic, encompasses several octaves and many styles. Few singers could do it, but Houston-based Jones already has. "Tim is just one of the great actors, artists and singers of our time," Verzatt said. "When the symphony asked me to do this piece, my first question was, 'Who's going to sing it?' When they told me it was Tim, I said 'Yes. Absolutely, yes.' "

Utah's largest music organization has had some trouble getting support and audiences for nontraditional music. It didn't have chamber concerts last year because in previous years, audiences were small - a liability during tough financial times.

Bram says ticket sales were relatively slow for October's concert, too, with about 250 people in the 500-seat Jeanné Wagner theater. But, he says, "I was in the hall, and it felt good. It didn't feel like no one was there. And I got the sense that people who were there really got it. They really believed in what we were trying to do."

Other chamber groups in Utah, such as the Canyonlands New Music Ensemble, perform newer work more regularly. Bram says he's hoping people who are interested in something new will think of the Utah Symphony as well as those groups. The more people get used to the idea of new music being performed, the more they'll want to go.

"I think that, as the cultural flagship, really, of Salt Lake City and Utah and the Mountain West, the Utah Symphony has some responsibility to touch every corner of the repertoire in some way. . . . This little corner of the repertoire can't be ignored just because it's not popular on a mass scale," Bram said. "We're really, really committed to it, even if there are growing pains."

Bram says the Utah Symphony would like to commission new work for the orchestra, but right now, the cost-benefit analysis doesn't work out. "You have to pay homage to the great masters, but you do have to develop the new voices of your own era," he said. After all, even Beethoven was once considered avant-garde. "All sounds are, at one point, new."

Songs for a Mad King

* THE UTAH SYMPHONY will perform "Eight Songs for a Mad King," with baritone Timothy Jones in the title role, Thursday at 8 p.m. in the Jeanné Wagner Theater at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City. Keith Lockhart conducts the work, which calls for a sextet of musicians from the Utah Symphony. The 30-minute performance will be followed by a screening of the 1994 film "The Madness of King George."

*TICKETS, $25 and $35, can be purchased by calling 801-355-ARTS, 1-888-451-2787, in person at the Abravanel Hall box office, at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center box office or by visiting www.utahsymphony.org. Subscribers and those wanting group or student discounts should call 801-533-NOTE.

* THE WORK will also be performed Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Park City's Egyptian Theatre. For tickets, call 435-649-9371.