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.