Course Director: Richard Smith
Administrators: Peter Wells & Maria Sanger
With guest tutors
Sunday 15th – Friday 20th August 2010
All performances and rehearsals will take place in an around the Abbey.
£245 (£65 deposit upon application, with £180 due on or before 18th June)
One place available to any voice part (correct 16th July 2010)
We are very excited to have been invited to sing at Westminster Abbey (London), coronation church since 1066 and focal point of a millenium of English pageantry and ceremony.
The main performance element of Westminster Liturgical Music Course will be the singing of four services of Choral Evensong in the Abbey and a lunchtime concert in "the parish church of the Houses of Parliament", St Margaret's. The repertoire will focus on the great organist-composers of the Abbey, including:
Robert White (appointed 1570), Christe Qui Lux IV
Orlando Gibbons (appointed 1623), Second Evening Service
John Blow (first appointed 1668), Dorian Service
The course will also include a performance of Henry Purcell's (appointed 1679) masterpiece, My Heart is Inditing, written for the Coronation of King James II in 1685 at the Abbey. The performance will be supported by a string ensemble.
Although we will concentrate mainly on early (pre-1700) music, the course will also feature works by later organists of the Abbey, including Ernest Bullock (appointed 1928, in post for the coronation of King George VI).
Please note that this repertoire list should be taken as provisional – we are very occasionally asked to make adjustments to our plans to accommodate unforseen events in the venues.
The course starts in Westminster on the afternoon of Sunday 15th August with an informal reception, registration, and rehearsals, finishing around 5.00pm. Main rehearsals from Monday – Friday will commence not earlier than 10.30 in the morning, to allow singers to commute in to Westminster with ease (although it may be necessary to hold one or two small-group sessions before this time). We will be singing services of Choral Evensong at 5.00pm on every weekday with the exception of Wednesday, when we will perform our concert in St Margaret's Church.
Although accommodation in the immediate vicinity of Westminster is somewhat scarce (although there are one or two cheaper hotels) the Westminster Tube Station is served by the Circle, District and Jubilee lines, giving easy access to many less expensive areas.