The New Year Revels having sadly been cancelled, the first workshop in 2015 will be for Baroque instrumentalists in February, tutored by Martin Perkins,Head of Early Music at the Birmingham Conservatoire. Singers can look forward to exploring Palestrina, Victoria and de Padilla in March with Nigel Short, Director of Tenebrae.
New Year Revels
In the depth of winter, on January 17th, why not head to a warm village hall in Dorridge for our annual Revels! The excellent David Hatcher will tutor an afternoon workshop for singers and Renaissance instruments- to include a 12 part Magnificat by the Polish Nicolai Zielenski – and lead us later in dancing. At 7.15 we will enjoy traditional hot punch and a ‘bring and share’ supper and the evening will continue after the dancing with informal performances from MEMF ensembles.
Henry Purcell with Steven Devine
We look forward to singing parts of Dido and Aeneas and the Fairy Queen at our next workshop with Steven Devine who has a busy career as a keyboard player, both solo and continuo, and Music director, working with many prestigious Ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and London Baroque.He is known to be an excellent and humorous Tutor so do come and join us at Selly Oak Methodist Church in Birmingham on 15th November.
Workshop-15th-Nov-2014-leaflet-and-booking-form
William Hunt Workshop on Pre-Restoration Verse Anthems 27 September 2014
The leaflet and booking form are now available for downloading for this exciting workshop with William (Bill) Hunt. Well-known for his work in London Baroque, Fretwork and the Dunedin Consort, he has also taught at various conservatoires and run workshops and residential courses across Europe. He founded Fretwork Publishing and now devotes much of his time to this enterprise, and to researching the Verse Anthem.
This musical form arose from the principles of the Reformation, which demanded clarity of the text in sacred music. Many of the greatest names in English music before the Civil War composed in this form and the workshop will be concentrating on Tomkins but also touching on Gibbons and/or Byrd.
Put 27th September in your diary now and don’t forget to book, all you singers, violists and recorder players!
“O Sacrum Convivium” Workshop for Singers 5 July 2014
At the heart of Christian worship is the Sacrament of the Eucharist. C16 composers wrote music of superlative quality to honour this sacrament. We will sing a selection of this music- including Motets by Tallis, Guerrero, Willaert, Byrd, Gabrieli and Josquin.
Where else would you have the opportunity to sing such a wonderful selection of music in one day!
Our Tutor, David Allinson, is well known to many of us, and alwaysavery popular tutor…. we have been waiting eagerly for his return to lead another workshop.
David has directed numerous workshops and summer schools in UK and abroad.
He has conducted the Renaissance Singers and has his own ensemble, Cantores.
He is currently Director of Music at Canterbury Christchurch University, and prior to that was a Teaching Fellow at Bristol University.
David studied music at St Peter’s College, Oxford and University College, Durham and completed his PhD at Exeter University. The history and performance of Renaissance Choral Music has always been his specialism, so he is a perfect tutor for this workshop which is being held in Harborne.
Click for the downloadable Leaflet and booking form 5th July 2014
Edwin Griggs 1947-2014
Edwin Griggs, Chairman
We are sad to announce the untimely death of our Chairman, Edwin Griggs. Edwin was elected as Chairman following the retirement of Jim Rowley in 2010 and had been busy carrying out the role very successfully until his health deteriorated. So many pieces unplayed, so many songs yet to sing. We will miss him.
Florentine Spectacular
In May we have another spectacular weekend workshop with Philip Thorby, who just gets better and better. This time the music will be from the Florentine Intermedii, originally written for the grand wedding of Ferdinando de Medici and Christine of Lorraine in 1598, The music is based on Mythological stories and culminates in a wonderful toe-tapping dance tune, a big hit in its day! Many fine composers contributed including Cavalieri, Malvezzi, Marenzio, Peri, Bardi and Caccini. As well as voices there are parts for many renaissance instruments including lutes, sackbuts, curtal, harpsichord, guitar, 2 violins, bass viols and even 4 recorders. Instrumentalists in particular need to book early so we can get the right balance.
Charpentier in Leamington Spa
We are delighted to welcome back Graham O’Reilly to run the next MEMF workshop.
Graham O’Reilly, founder of the “Ensemble William Byrd”, has lived in France for more than 30 years. Originally from Australia, he studied at University of Sydney before coming to England to work as a Singer and Music Director. Graham continues to Direct “Ensemble William Byrd”, with whom he has made many highly acclaimed recordings. He also works throughout Europe as a Choral Conductor and Vocal Trainer, and is in great demand to lead masterclasses and workshops. Graham has run two previous workshops for MEMF, which were very successful and enjoyable:- Carissimi’s “Jeptha, and more recently, a wonderful Portugese Polychoral workshop..
The music we will be studying on 22nd February is Polychoral music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704), which was very much influenced by the years he spent studying in Italy with Carissimi. We hope to include Extremum dei judicium (H.24) for double Chorus and Baritone solo; and Salve Regina (H.24) for 3 Choirs.
We need plenty more singers for the 2 and 3 choir pieces, but we already have enough instrumentalists (unless there is a keen keyboard player who would like to help out with reading figured bass on the second keyboard part!).
Bookings please by February 8th.
For a sneak preview, go to Amazon where Graham’s recording of Charpentier choral music is available as an mp3 download.
King’s Coronation Anthems
On the 16th November the Internationally renowned Robert King, of the King’s Consort, will conduct a day workshop for singers, instrumentalists and continuo (A415) on Handel’s Coronation Anthems; ‘My Heart is Inditing’ and ‘The King Shall Rejoice’. The venue is Selly Oak Methodist Church, Langleys Road which is well served by buses and trains from the City Centre and has plenty of parking nearby. this should be an exciting day.
The Russian Baroque experience on 28th September
It was an absolute privilege to be part of the group of singers assembled at St Nicholas Church in Warwick to be led by such an inspiring tutor. He knew exactly how to structure the day, beginning with simple yet heavenly music so that we could experience singing in Russian, then each new piece set new challenges, the previous ones having laid down the essentials of singing in this unfamiliar language. There was just the right amount of singing interspersed with interesting stories of life in the Russia of Catherine the Great. There was just the right amount of sitting and standing and the music he selected for us was just unbelievably sublime, a good mix of homophonic and contrapuntal textures.
I am so very glad that I attended. That workshop and Peter’s CD have opened up a whole new world of music for me that I had previously not experienced. Let’s hope he comes again to inspire us.
Susan Francis
Peter Leech was masterly. He handed out a wealth of music, assured us that singing in Russian wasn’t all that difficult and managed to sing tenor, conduct and play the piano simultaneously! His enthusiasm was infectious and his praise generous. I found the pieces themselves very interesting, musically and historically. We were treated to humorous anecdotes and relevant developmental facts from someone manifestly an expert in his field. The final rendition of the pieces we had been studying was quite stirring. I heard a few murmurings that the attendance was low (about 30, I think), but I don’t think the workshop suffered from that. I certainly enjoyed it and am considering attending the Handel and Purcell workshop in Birmingham on November 16th.
Chris Prior.