Doppio coro? Che bella!

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Because apparently one choir is simply not enough.

 

Join the Renaissance Singers for an evening of glorious Renaissance polyphony, featuring eight-part splendour from Victoria, Allegri, Gabrielli and Croce, topped off with Palestrina’s Ecce nunc benedicite a12— because adding yet another choir seems like a perfectly sensible way to finish the workshop.

 

Expect choirs throwing phrases across the room, cadences that linger, text painting, imitative mayhem, and the particular joy of nudging that suspension against a part that's physically distant but tonally close. We’ll be getting inside some seriously gorgeous repertoire, looking at how these composers make multiple choirs converse, collide and eventually agree on where the cadence is.

 

Bring your awareness a-game, a pencil, and your finest Renaissance eyebrows. Oh, and preferably a friend who sings Tenor as well.

 

Victoria Alma redemptoris a8 

Allegri Christus Resurgens a8

Gabrielli O Magnum mysterium a8

Victoria Salve Regina a8

Croce In spiritu humilitatis a8

Palestrina Ecce nunc Benedicite a12

 

About Will Dawes

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Will is the Director of Chapel Music at Somerville College, and Director of Music at the church of St Mary Magdalen, Oxford. He is a graduate of Edinburgh University and the Royal Academy of Music where he studied Choral Conducting and Singing. He is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, and has worked with choirs all over the world, including in Auckland, Beijing, Delhi, Guanajuato, Ramallah, and numerous venues across Europe and the USA. He was the founding Director of Frideswide Voices, has directed the BBC Singers, worked as Chorusmaster for the Aurora Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Choir.

Will started singing aged 4 as part of the Berkshire Young Musicians Trust and was then a chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. He is now active as a consort singer and for 16 years was a member of the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Stile Antico, performing regular concerts at Wigmore Hall, Boston Early Music Festival, and at the BBC Proms, was nominated for three GRAMMYs (including performing at the 2020 awards ceremony in Madison Square Garden) and winning numerous international awards. He is a former Lay Clerk of Christ Church, Oxford, and continues to regularly sing with The Sixteen, Ora, the Gabrieli Consort, and Magnificat.