Chant workshop arranged by the Latin Mass Society for Juventutem London

The Latin Mass Society has long been the sponsor of the monthly Sung Masses organised by Juventutem London; this Saturday, thanks to the LMS, the Juventutem Schola will be receiving training from the young professional musician, Graham Neal, a day arranged by the Latin Mass Society's London Director of Music, Matthew Schellhorn.

CHORAL AND GREGORIAN CHANT WORKSHOP

for members of the Juventutem London Schola Cantorum

Saturday 28 November 2015 at 10:00

St Mary, Moorfields

with Mr Graham Neal (tenor)

Programme

10:00 Meet and greet
10:10 Group singing led by Mr John Simmonds; observations made by Mr Graham Neal (repertoire: hymn Rector potens and psalm 73 vv. 1–9)
10:30 Paired lessons begin in 20-minute slots (everyone else observing), i.e.:
10:30 singers 1 and 2 (Nick Hurle and Brynn Binnell)
10:50 singer 3 and 4 (Alex Smith and Richard Hawker)
11:10 singer 5 and 6 (Kitty Malkin and Katrina Madely)
11:30 break
11:40 singer 7 and 8 (David Madeley and John Simmonds)
12:00 Angelus
12:05 Group session with Graham
12:30 Sext (tutti)
13:00 ends

Graham Neal read music at the University of Surrey where he was awarded the Robert Naylor prize for the most meritorious degree recital. During this time he held a choral scholarship at Guildford Cathedral. Graham subsequently studied on the Knack opera course at the English National Opera and as a postgraduate at Trinity College of Music. He now studies with Jenevora Williams and Nicholas Powell. Graham has a wide repertoire as an oratorio soloist.  This year he has sung Mahler Symphony No. 8, VerdiRequiem, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle and Bach Mass in B minor.

On the operatic stage, Graham has performed the roles of Don Ramiro, La Cenerentolafor Brent Opera and Opera Loki, Ferrando, Cosi Fan Tutte at Greenwich Theatre, Belmonte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Camden, Sextus Julius Caesar at Blackheath Halls, Don José Carmen at Greenwich Theatre, and Worldly Glory Pilgrim's Progress for the Philarmonia at Sadler's Wells, as well as being a chorus member for English National Opera, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Opéra Comique, l'Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and Stanley Hall Opera.

Graham is adept at choral singing, appearing frequently in concert and on recordings. He sings with the Monteverdi Choir, Polyphony, Philharmonia Voices, English Voices, the NDR Chor and Cappella Nova. Recent television appearances have included John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Marathon and Bach: A Passionate Life for the BBC with the Monteverdi Choir.

www.grahamneal.com

Seminar on the rhymed Office of St Magnus

Any readers who happen to be in Orkney next week would be most welcome to come and hear me talk about my reconstruction of the music for the rhymed Office in honour of St Magnus of Orkney.

From the Centre for Nordic Studies website:
Dr Ben Whitworth: 'Rhymes in honour of St Magnus: an echo of medieval Orkney?'
When Nov 17, 2015
from 07:30 PM to 09:00 PM
This seminar will be held at Orkney College. Free entry. All welcome.

Please come!

Chant Workshop Days presented by Opus Anglicanum

Opus Anglicanum's Chant Experience Days are led by John Rowlands-Pritchard, who studied medieval song with Professor John Stevens and early Gregorian chant with Dr Mary Berry, and who has sung throughout Europe with the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge. These events are open to anyone and all are welcome. Mr Rowlands-Pritchard has sent us details of the forthcoming events:

Sat 31st October
Worcester Lodge, Badminton, GL9 1AH 10 am - 5 pm

The day will be in the wonderful and unusual Worcester Lodge, an 18th century Banqueting Lodge on the Badminton estate. The day concludes with an informal performance of a sequence of chant for All Hallows.
£25 (u-18 £5) Morning and afternoon refreshments and a bread & cheese lunch included. 
Please book in advance at www.opus-a.co.uk (preferred) or cheque ‘Opus Anglicanum’ by post: 36 Berrington Road, Chipping Campden GL55 6JA

Sat 27th February 2016 (to be confirmed) 
Charlcombe Church, Bath

Sat 5th March
St Woolos Cathedral, Newport NP20 4EA
Run by RSCM South East Wales. 
Further details to follow on website.

Sat 12th March
St George’s Church Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1LB 10 am - 4 pm 
Chant associated with Venantius Fortunatus - Vexilla regis, Salve festa dies, Pange lingua gloriosi. Participants perform Compline with Opus Anglicanum in the evening concert.
Details and tickets from Dorchester Arts www.dorchesterarts.org.uk

Mon 25th April - Thurs 28th April 
Benslow Music Trust, Hitchin SG4 9RB
GREGORIAN CHANT: A RESIDENTIAL COURSE. I encourage readers to consider booking for Benslow Music Trust’s residential course on Gregorian chant.   It is warmly recommended as a rewarding opportunity to dedicate time to experience Gregorian Chant. Benslow is a very special place, and  offers a tradition of hospitality and friendship for music makers of every sort. The Chant course will be one of a number happening in this beautiful house with enjoyable meals and accommodation.  
All information & booking http://benslowmusic.org  01462 45944

Opus Anglicanum latest news: http://blog.opus-a.co.uk

Chant evening classes with the Schola Gregoriana in London

The Schola Gregoriana is running chant evenings at the Farm Street Church, 114 Mount Street, London W1 at 6.30 pm each Tuesday from 22^nd September to 8^th December 2015

Directed by Dr. Peter Wilton, B.Ed. (Hons.) M.Mus., Editor of chant for the Office of Vespers for Westminster Cathedral Choir.

Practical instruction includes:   Chant performance, Music for the Mass and Daily Offices, English and Latin texts.

Anyone able to sing in tune is welcome, with or without chant experience.    

£5 per evening, or £50 for the whole term.

Enquiries to Mr. G. Macartney, Schola Gregoriana , 26 The Grove,  Ealing,  London  W5 5LH   

Tel:  020 8840 5832 (answerphone when out)  

E-mails:  grey.macartney@gmail.com

Chant news from France

Rather short notice, this, but if you can get to Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val (Tarn & Garonne) this weekend, Una Voce France are organising a conference on chant and a number of liturgical ceremonies, as part of the town's medieval festival. Details here, including times of Mass, Benediction, Vespers - and chant rehearsals for any willing volunteers!

The Una Voce France online shop may also be of interest for its selection of chant books, CDs, &c.

Dominican music in Oxford: Friday 11th September

From PIMMS

Free concert for PMMS members!

On Friday 11th September, at 6pm in Lincoln College Chapel (Turl Street, Oxford), there will be a PMMS-sponsored concert, showcasing music that can be associated with the Dominican Order--both friars and nuns.  Sung by a small group of Oxford choral scholars, the programme will include Dominican chant, Dominican-composed sequences, Notre-Dame polyphony (used as binding fragments in Dominican books), and trouvere songs compiled by a Dominican. 

The concert is part of a wider conference on the Influences of the Dominican Order in the Middle Ages; thanks to PMMS sponsorship, the concert is open to all PMMS members to attend for free.  To do so, just 

emaileleanor.giraud@lincoln.ox.ac.uk to reserve a place.  

For further information on the conference, visit: http://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/influences-dominican-order-middle-ages

Gregorian Chant Workshop at Ealing Abbey

A Gregorian Chant Workshop will be held at Ealing Abbey, West London, on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th August, led by Christopher Hodkinson, director of the Schola Gregoriana Cambridge.

PREPARE TO SING AT MASS FOR THE ASSUMPTION OF OUR LADY!

Saturday 15 August 2015:
11:00-17:15 (registration from 10:30) 

Sunday 16 August 2015:
10:30-11:30 Rehearsal for Mass 
12:00 Mass for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary 

This Workshop is being promoted by the Ealing Abbey Lay Plain Chant Choir under the direction of Fr Peter Burns. All with basic experience of singing plain chant or choral music welcome.

WORKSHOP INCLUDES:

• Instruction on vocal technique 
• Reading chant notation 
• Learning to sing the chants for the Mass for the Assumption 
• Presentation on the liturgy and music for the Assumption
• Singing one of the minor Offices for the Vigil of the Assumption 
• Attending First Vespers for the Assumption in the Abbey Church 

COST £30 (including light refreshments only) ADVANCE BOOKING REQUIRED

ENQUIRIES & BOOKING: Patrick and Annie Martin 020 8991 1081 / parotema@gmail.com

Call out for a choir - Wren Choral Marathon

The City of London Festival is presenting a Wren ChoralMarathon on Saturday 27 June. Seventeen choirs will perform in seventeen of Christopher Wren’s City churches, including St Paul’s Cathedral, between 8 a.m. and 1 a.m. The a cappella concerts will feature a wide array of ensembles performing a broad range of musical styles. The concerts are free to attend, and with the churches spread around the Square Mile, it should be possible to attend them all!

Your schola could be part of this. The organisers hope to include a plainsong matins/lauds, or similar event, starting at 8 a.m. at St Michael Cornhill. The timings would be:

7 a.m. Access to the church

7:45 Doors open

8:00 Concert starts

8:40 Concert ends

9:30 Venue clear

If you would be interested in taking part, please contact Eleanor Mottram, the Festival Administrator (Eleanor.Mottram@colf.org, tel. 020 7583 3585).

Solemn Requiem for Richard III

A Solemn Requiem for King Richard III will be celebrated, according to the usus antiquior of the Roman Rite, at Fotheringhay Church on 13 June.

Celebrant: Fr Guy Nicholls, Cong. Orat.
With music by the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge and Divers Voyces, with La Dolce Gamba (viol consort)
Where: Fotheringhay Church, Northants
When: Saturday 13 June, at 4 p.m.

The music will include plainsong, English fifteenth-century polyphony and a new motet in honour of the king.

Retiring collection. Supported by the Richard III Society and the Friends of Fotheringhay Church.

(Richard III was born at Fotheringhay Castle.)

PIMMS AGM and conference in Bristol

The Annual General Meeting of the Plainsong & Medieval Music Society is taking place in Bristol in conjunction with a conference on medieval liturgy. See here for more details.


On the conference itself, here is the description.

Senses of Liturgy, University of Bristol, 21-22 May, 2015

New publication: a revised edition of "Plainchant for Everyone" by Mary Berry

The Royal School of Church Music has just announced the publication of The RSCM Guide to Plainchant: An introduction to plainsong.

From their website:

A revision of the seminal and best selling ‘Plainchant for everyone’ by Dr Mary Berry, the leading plainchant expert who died in 2008. This new edition, revised by one of Dr Berry’s pupils, John Rowlands-Pritchard, is re-set with improved and clearer layout. It also includes a new anthology of plainchant that singers and choir directors will find invaluable. Cantors, in particular, will find this book essential reading. Mary Berry, CBE (Sister Thomas More) (29 June 1917 – 1 May 2008) was an Augustinian canoness and noted choral conductor and musicologist. She was an authority on the performance of Gregorian chant. John Rowlands-Pritchard was a pupil of John Stevens at Cambridge, and gave lecture demonstrations of Professor Stevens’ isosyllabic interpretation of mediaeval monody. He studied the performance of early chant with Dr. Mary Berry, illustrating her lectures and broadcast talks, and sang and recorded regularly with her specialist group Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge as Cantor, and continues to give masterclasses in Plainchant across the country for the RSCM.

ALL Chant Course at Buckfast in August

Active Involvement in the Chant!  Sing from the Graduale Parvum at the Association for Latin Liturgy’s two-day summer school at Buckfast Abbey this summer:

Monday 17 – Tuesday 18 August 2015

The Association’s meeting for 2015 marks a completely new departure: a short summer school over two days, at the School of the Annunciation, Buckfast Abbey, Buckfastleigh, Devon, TQ11 0EE. Website: schooloftheannunciation.com. The summer school will run from lunchtime on Monday 17 August to lunchtime on Tuesday 18, and the cost, including one night’s accommodation at the School’s residential centre, breakfast, and the use of the School’s facilities will be £80 per person. For non-residents, the charge is £20. The cost of two lunches and one supper in the Abbey restaurant will be additional to this, costing in the region of £10-£15 for lunch and from £15-£25 for supper, depending on which options guests choose.

The accommodation in the Abbey is available on a first-come, first-served basis, and we cannot promise to be able to secure accommodation at the Abbey for late applicants, but there is accommodation available at a variety of places in the Buckfast area. Speedy booking is advised! [Please note that if a booking is later cancelled, we will only be able to give a refund if the place can be filled by someone else.]

If you would like to extend your stay at the Abbey, or to take in the summer school as part of a holiday in the West Country, contact the School of the Annunciation direct to book a further stay. Alternatively, there are several bed and breakfast establishments in the immediate vicinity. 

Directions to Buckfast Abbey can be found by following the link on the School’s website. If driving, the postcode for satnavs is TQ11 0EE. There is a regular bus service to the Abbey from Totnes: see www.cartogold.co.uk/devon_transport/devon. It is also possible to reach Buckfastleigh by steam train, changing from the main line at Totnes. See: www.southdevonrailway.co.uk/timetable

The summer school will focus on active involvement in chant, using chants from the work in progress on the Graduale Parvum, less-florid chants based closely on the Graduale Romanum, currently the ALL’s flagship project, and on an investigation of the ‘untranslatable’ elements of the Latin Missal. The chant workshops will be led by Fr Guy Nicholls, and will culminate in participation in the sung Mass on the Tuesday, while the theme for the translation workshop will be: “Hidden Treasures: what no translation can ever tell us.” In these sessions, led by Mgr Bruce Harbert, we will investigate elements in the original Latin which cannot be carried over into the vernacular. Participants should bring with them a copy of the Ordo Missae (Ordinary Form) in Latin and English. If these are not readily to hand, copies are usually available for purchase in the Abbey’s excellent bookshop. The music for the chant workshops will be provided, and is included in the fee.

Please send, by 1^st July at the latest, a cheque for £80 (residential) or £20 (non-residential) payable to Association for Latin Liturgy, to The Treasurer, ALL, 47 Western Park Road, Leicester, LE3 6HQ. Please give a postal and an email address. Please check first to see if accommodation is still available, by email to Christopher.Francis@latin-liturgy.org. 

The Mighty Spirit: A chant study day and Vigil Mass of Pentecost

Please note the following forthcoming event:

"The Mighty Spirit: The Vigil Mass of Pentecost - A New Approach to Singing the Mass"
When: Saturday 23 May, 12 noon to 5 p.m.
Where: St Mary's and St John's Catholic Church, Snowhill, Wolverhampton WV2 4AD
Celebrant: Fr Guy Nicholls, Cong. Orat.
Speakers: Fr Guy Nicholls, Cong. Orat. and Wilfrid Jones

Talks, chant class, and question time. Bring-and-share lunch; soup and hot drinks provided.

Please email the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music to reserve a place.

Mass will be celebrated at 4 p.m. This will be a fully sung Mass of the Vigil of Pentecost, with the full complement of readings and Tracts. Music will be partly in Latin and partly in English, and participants will be introduced to the Graduale Parvum. This is a collection of the Proper liturgical texts set to simple but authentic Gregorian melodies, begun by the late Professor László Dobszay, and currently being brought to completion by the Association for Latin Liturgy.

The Solemnity of Saint Benedict in Bruges

From Wednesday 8th till Friday 10th July, the solemnity of Saint Benedict will be prepared with Jean-Pascal Ollivry in the convent of the Carmelite Fathers (Ezelstraat) at Bruges, Belgium.

An English-language prospectus detailing all the events can be seen here. Online bookings can be made on the website of l’Académie de chant grégorien.

Chants for Reburying a King

The reinterment of the remains of King Richard III in Leicester this Thursday is an event which has been much discussed. Among the music to be sung on this occasion there will be both medieval plainsong antiphons* and new compositions incorporating chant motifs. The music for the service is discussed on the blog How to Rebury a King, by Dr Alexandra Buckle, here, here and here.

* The video found on this page shows the choir of New College, Oxford singing two of these antiphons: In paradisum (starts rather abruptly) and De terra.

International Gregorian Festival, Watou, Belgium

The Twelfth International Gregorian Festival of Watou (Belgium) will be held from 13 to 17 May 2015, with pre-conference events across French and Belgian Flanders from 8 May onwards. The full programme has been released, and all details can be seen at the Festival's English-language website.

There will be performances by 29 scholas from 17 countries. The UK is not represented this year, though English choirs have sung at Watou in the past. The Festival is held every three years.

Concert of Sacred Levantine Music and Chant

The following notice has been received by email:

The Sacred Voices of the Levant invite you to a concert of sacred Levantine (Middle Eastern) music and chant, for the deliverance of Iraq and Syria, on Saturday 28 March 2015, at 6 p.m., at St Barnabas Church, St Barnabas Street (off Pimlico Road), London SW1W 8PF.

The concert will feature Syriac and Byzantine chants for Lent and Holy Week, performed by the choirs of the Levantine Churches in London, namely the Melkite, Syriac (Syrian Orthodox), Maronite and Chaldean choirs. Entrance is free, but a collection will be taken for the refugees in Syria and Iraq.

Monastic Chant Forum

Announcement from the Monastic Chant Forum

The Monastic Chant Forum will hold a 3 day meeting at Quarr Abbey from the evening of Monday 13th July (arrivals) to the morning of Friday 17 July (departures), 2015.

This will be the eighth such meeting in the history of this group, which aims to promote Gregorian Chant within the Monasteries of the British Isles. Although the emphasis is on Gregorian Chant in a specifically Monastic context, anyone from a non monastic background who is interested is welcome to attend.

The general theme for 2015 will be music for the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

The main speakers will be Dr. Giedrius Gapsys, musicologist of the Paris Conservatoire, specialising in Gregorian Chant; Dom Xavier Perrin OSB, Prior of Quarr Abbey, and Sr. Bernadette Byrne OSB, Choir Mistress of St. Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde.

Enquiries and bookings to Dom Benedict Hardy OSB of Pluscarden Abbey:dbhosb@gmail.com 

For details of accommodation at Quarr, please contact Fr. Brian at: procurator@quarr.org 

Information about St. Cecilia's Ryde from Sr. Bernadette Byrne at abbey@stceciliasabbey.org.uk

Plainsong & Medieval Music Society: 2015 Events

The new website is now up and running at www.plainsong.org.uk

1. PMMS Study Day 2015

We are delighted to announce the 2015 study day, as part of the Senses of Liturgy conference in Bristol, on 21-22 May 2015. Registration details, already-agreed-papers, plus open call for papers can be found here: Senses of Liturgy There are good discounts for Plainsong and Medieval Music Society members, and there are also some bursaries available for postgraduates who are presenting a spoken paper or a poster. 

2. Bruno Turner awarded Spanish Medalla de Oro

We are delighted to announce that our President, Bruno Turner, has been awarded Spain’s top Arts/Cultural award, La Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes. Bruno was the founder of the publishing company Mapa Mundi in 1977, and was the founding conductor of the choir Pro Cantione Antiqua, releasing several CDs with that group. He has had a lifelong interest in Iberian music, as an editor, a composer and a scholar.

We would like to offer Bruno our warmest congratulations on this honour.

3. Facing the Music of Medieval England, 21-22 March 2015, University of Huddersfield

PMMS-sponsored event (jointly with EECM and RMA) Facing the Music of Medieval England will take on 21-22 March at the University of Huddersfield. The keynote will be given by Margaret Bent, and the programme showcases many speakers who are members of PMMS. Registration will open soon and cost no more than £15. You can have a preview of the programme on the MuGI twitteraccount. For more information contact Lisa Colton at l.m.colton@hud.ac.uk.

4. Save the Day: PMMS Study Day 2016

Advance notice: the 2016 Study Day will take place at the University of Newcastle, hosted by Dr Magnus Williamson, and linking with his AHRC-funded Tudor Partbooks project. The likely date is 9 April 2016.

Gregorian Chant meeting 2015

Our last meeting, addressed by the composer James MacMillan
and Fr Guy Nichols, Director of the Newman Institute of Sacred Music.

The next meeting of the Gregorian Chant Network will take place on Saturday 14th March. For the first time it will be open to all. Directors of chant groups registered with the GCN will get a discount.

We will be addressed by Dr Daniel Saulnier, former choirmaster at Solesmes, and Giovanni Varelli, Cambridge researcher who discovered the manuscript of the earliest written polyphonic music, which will be performed at the meeting.

The meeting includes lunch, for those who want it, and concludes with Vespers, followed by tea.

Programme (Subject to minor changes)

10.30 Registration
11.00 Talk by Dr Daniel Saulnier
12noon Angelus and talk by Giovanni Varelli
1pm Lunch
2.30 Joseph Shaw on the GCN
2.45-4pm Rehearsal for Vespers with Daniel Saulnier
4.15 Vespers in the Little Oratory
5pm Tea

Prices: Directors of scholas and chant choirs which are members of the Gregorian Chant Network: £10 including lunch. Others: £10 without lunch; £25 including lunch.

The Latin Mass Society is hosting a booking page here.

Antiqua Laus

Photo: Gruppo vocale "Antiqua Laus"

We have recently been sent some information and recordings by the Italian choir "Antiqua Laus", who specialise in Ambrosian and Gregorian chant, and sacred polyphony. The choir was founded in 2008, initially in order to give voice to an ancient codex of Ambrosian chant, which had been discovered at the parish church of Coarezza (Varese).

Since then, Antiqua Laus have recorded several CDs, of which the first was Jesu dulcis memoria (Universal, 2009).

They have also been involved with the publication of chant manuscripts, which have appeared in three volumes in the series Quaderni di Storia del Territorio Varesino:

1. San Sebastiano: liturgia solenne di rito ambrosiano (2010);
2. Monasteri Fruttuariense del Seprio (2012);
3. Canonica San Vittore - Bedero in Valtravaglia (2014).

This latest volume includes a facsimile edition of a thirteenth-century Ambrosian antiphoner, and is a considerable addition to the published corpus of medieval Milanese chant. The book is accompanied by a CD, featuring Vespers and Mass in honour of St Victor, sung by the choir with organ improvisations by Alessandro La Ciacera from Milan Cathedral; and also by an interactive DVD. The next project will involve one of three fifteenth-century antiphoners from the Collegiata di Castiglione Olona (Varese).

The choir thus continues to recover and enrich the repertory of Ambrosian chant through scholarship, concerts, recordings and liturgical performance.

More information is available at the group's website: http://www.antiqualaus.com/

Please click on the links below to hear some of their recordings:

Desiderium animae

Justus non conturbabitur

Qui vult venire post me

Magnificat (with alternatim organ versets)

Regina coeli