The Wells Tudor Music Course 2009
Course Director: Richard Smith
with guest tutors including Alistair Dixon
(director, Chapelle du Roi)
Sunday 18th October - Friday 23rd October 2009
based in Wells Cathedral
£245 (£65 deposit upon application, with £180 due on or before 22nd August 2009)
Following the success of the 2008 Wells Tutor Music Course, we'll be back in England's smallest city for 2009, singing more of England's wonderful Tudor choral music!
The course will focus on English sacred music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, some of the most beautiful and enduring works in the liturgical repertiore. This year, in addition to surveying works—some well known, some less so—by the most famous English Elizabethans, we'll be looking at some of the works by immigrant composers who brought a continental flavour to the English cathedrals, chapels & courts.
The 2009 Wells Tudor Music Course will start on the afternoon of Sunday 18th October with a light lunch and preliminary rehearsals. Over the following few days we will sing four services of Choral Evensong in Wells Cathedral and on Thursday we will perform a lunchtime concert in the nave. In addition to rehearsals, a variety of workshops, seminars and concerts will be held thoughout the week, led by a variety of guests.
Back by popular request, we will be joined for part of the course by guest tutor Alistair Dixon, a leading authority on Tudor vocal music. 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.