Like millions of other folks, our family was riveted by Ken Burns’ recent documentary series for PBS, “Prohibition.” So, as I was looking through various arts calendars this week, my eye caught on next Tuesday’s sing-along with the internationally celebrated Rose Ensemble, where they’ll be performing at one of the St. Paul public library branches. The mini-concert will feature tunes from the group’s new program, which it will be taking on a statewide tour through the month of November — “Songs of Temperance and Temptation: 100 Years of Restraint and Revelry in Minnesota.”

Like all their concerts, “Temperance and Temptation” is an exercise in scholarly research, as much as it is musicianship, filled with Prohibition-era songs, stories of Carrie Nation and 19^th century Temperance Union meetings; the full concert is a staged affair, with live storytelling, period costumes and projections of jazz-age historical photographs. The musical line-up is diverse and all-American, including show tunes by Irving Berlin, 1920s jazz standards, Irish reels, ragtime, Victorian waltzes and a variety of old-time gospel crowd-pleasers.

The St. Paul-based Rose Ensemble is perhaps best known for its performances of medieval and sacred music; while I love the transcendent harmonies of such fare, it’s to its gorgeous recording of early American music I find myself returning: toe-tapping country dances, Southern “sacred harp” shape-note songs, Shaker hymns and Colonial-era anthems. I’m eager to hear what it will do with the classic American songs of the jazz era.

My kids are still small, and I’m not quite ready to brave a full concert experience with them — but I think they’d be game for a sing-along show. How lucky are we to have such great community programming at our local public library?

Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. the Rose Ensemble will be at the St Anthony Park Public Library, courtesy of the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, for its annual sing-along, featuring pieces from its new program, “Songs of Temperance and Temptation: 100 Years of Restraint and Revelry in Minnesota.” 2245 Como Ave., St. Paul, Minn., 55108. Admission is free and open to the public. Find the full line-up of events in the Rose Ensemble’s performance season on its website.