Course Director: Richard Smith
Guest Tutor: Alistair Dixon
Sunday 24th October – Friday 29th October 2010
£245 (£65 deposit upon application, with £180 due on or before 3rd September)
B
ack by popular demand, this year's Tudor Music Course takes us to Southwell Minster, the cathedral of Nottinghamshire. Having suffered less than many similar buildings during the Reformation, it is a prime example of the Norman and Early English architectural styles. We will be performing four services of Evensong in the Minster during the course, and rehearsing in the Great Hall. On Wednesday we will be performing an afternoon concert in the magnificent parish church of Newark, St Mary's. Please note that the Great Hall of Southwell Minster is only accessible by a flight of stairs.
We are very pleased to welcome back Alistair Dixon for his third year as guest tutor. Alistair is the director and founder of Chapelle Du Roi, one of England's finest early music vocal ensembles. Chapelle Du Roi specialize in the performance of sacred music of the European renaissance and their nine-disc recording of the complete works of Thomas Tallis has met with international critical acclaim. Alistair is also a founder of Signum Records, a leading independent classical music label. He is in great demand as a course tutor and is a leading authority on Tudor vocal music.
The repertoire for the course will include works contained in the Southwell Tenor Partbook, the earliest datable source of English liturgical music of the first half of the seventeenth century.
The course starts in Southwell on the afternoon of Sunday 24th October with registration and a buffet. This will be followed by our first rehearsal sessions. Services of Evensong are held from 5.45 – 6.35, and rehearsals will take place during the day starting at around 10.30. Generally speaking there will be no scheduled events after Evensong, although there will be an optional staff concert on one of the evenings. Daytime sessions will include a Q & A session with Alistair Dixon and a recording session. The course will finish on Friday after Evensong.