P a s t W o r k s h o p s
Season 2019-20
On the Wings of a Dove
Online workshop with David Allinson
Monday 6th July 2020 7.30pm - 9pm
An online workshop with David Allinson
William Byrd, Vigilate
Manuel Cardoso, Sitivit anima mea
In this live session, David will look at two wonderful motets of longing — Vigilate by Elizabethan composer William Byrd, whose text speaks powerfully of watching and waiting at a time of great turbulence, and Sitivit anima mea by Portuguese composer Manuel Cardoso, which conjures with images of longed-for peace, of flying like a dove and finding rest. Cardoso’s style is smooth and consoling; Byrd’s is energetically, restlessly rhetorical.
David will explore the context and meaning of each piece in words and images, along the lines of his ongoing ‘From the Conductor’s Stand’ talks. We will mark up our scores together, picking out points of interest. There will be an opportunity to pose questions in the typed ‘chat’ facility, and David will answer some of those queries towards the end of the session.
PDFs of scores will be emailed out in advance to all those signed up. The session is expected to last about 90 minutes.
Stradella's 16 part Missa Ad te clamamus
with JanJoost van Elburg
Saturday 18th January 2020 10am - 5pm
St Mary-at-Hill, Lovat Lane, London EC3R 8EE
£28 full price, £25 concessions
We are delighted to welcome back former Renaissance Singers Director JanJoost van Elburg to lead an all-day workshop on Stradella's Missa Ad te clamamus, for four choirs.
Stradella (1644 — 1682) was murdered in Genoa when he was forty-two years old. Until then he enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres. His musical style is distinctive, characterised by fluid lines, great skill in counterpoint, and harmony which was tonal but which occasionally offers chords that were unusual then and striking even today.
JanJoost van Elburg is one of the leading conducting teachers in Holland. JanJoost concluded highly successful tenures directing The Renaissance Singers and The Reading Bach Choir and currently conducts The Bartholomew Consort
(Oxford), The Lelikoor and the Westerkerkkoor (Amsterdam). He has directed Blackdowns Early Music Festival events each year since 2004, including the biannual GRAND BAROQUE series in Exeter Cathedral. He is much sought after as a vocal coach both in the UK, the US and the Netherlands, a
teacher of ensemble technique and training, singing, theory and choral conducting. He is a regular guest conductor of Polyhymnia (NY City) and at the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague. Upcoming projects include Coro de las bellas Artes in Mexico, and a teaching project in collaboration with Paul Phoenix (ex-King’s Singers) in Beijing (the China Conservatory of Music) and Shanghai - school choirs, and at University of Wuhan.
As a singer he has performed with a wide variety of ensembles, including the Tallis Scholars, The Dutch Broadcast Choir, Capella Pratensis, Capella Coloniënsis in Cologne, and his own ensembles on several European tours. He gives workshops and lectures at home and abroad, and for more than 25 years he has taught on the Buitenkunst summer course.
Jean Maillard, International Man of Mystery
with Rory McCleery
Monday 21st October 7 - 9.30pm
The Gresham Centre, EC2V 7BX
Rory McCleery, Director of The Marian Consort, leads an evening workshop exploring Maillard's music, including movements of his Missa Je suis déshéritée and motets from the 1565 Modulorum Ioannis Maillardi print issued by Le Roy and Ballard.
Despite his being identified as ‘one of the most important French composers of the sixteenth century’ by the renowned Musicologist François Lesure nearly half a century ago, Jean Maillard is a figure who remains shrouded in mystery and whose works have rarely been performed in modern times. This contrasts sharply with his reception during his own lifetime: his works were widely disseminated and survive in manuscripts and prints originating in Germany, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK. Telling also is the number of composers who modelled their own compositions on works by Maillard: this list includes fellow Frenchman Goudimel and also such luminaries as Orlando Lassus, Jacob Handl and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It is possible that Maillard harboured Protestant sympathies which may have resulted in his exclusion from the circles of the Catholic royal court in Paris, and even, like his fellow composer Claude Goudimel, his death in the 1572 St Bartholomew’s Day massacres.
Rory McCleery, “a countertenor and academic as well as conductor … combining boyish geniality with quite startling erudition”, gained a double first in music from Oxford University, subsequently completing an MSt in Musicology with Distinction. He is the founder and director of The Marian Consort, with whom he performs across the UK, Europe and North America. Under his direction, The Marian Consort has become renowned internationally for its compelling interpretations of a wide range of repertoire, particularly the music of the Renaissance and early Baroque, but also of works by contemporary British composers, and in 2017 was nominated for a Gramophone Award.
Rory is much in demand as a guest conductor and workshop leader, and has led workshop sessions, study days and singing courses across the UK, Germany, Spain and the USA, working with choirs of all ages and sizes in repertoire from Tallis, Gesualdo, Purcell and Gabrieli to the music of James MacMillan and Howard Skempton. He is a passionate believer in the importance of music education and singing for young people and is Director of Choral Music at City, University of London.