Choral Workshop: Sunday 26 February 2023

Canterbury workshop information form (click to open)

Please book using this form (click to open).

Payment: please send your remittance of £22 (£10 for under 25s), following the instructions on the sign-up page.

If you have queries, it is essential that you email <davidallinson.choral@gmail.com> and not any other address.

Thank you!

David Allinson’s second self-run Canterbury early music workshop.
Following the success of the Lenten choral day in 2021, which focused on the music of Thomas Tallis, this workshop showcases beautiful music by his younger colleague and friend William Byrd, who died 400 years ago in 1623.
Numbers will be limited to 56, which should ensure comfortable and safe distancing.
Ventilation will be maintained in St Greg’s, so please dress warmly if it’s a cold day!
One of England’s greatest composers, William Byrd survived and even thrived in a time of religious and political upheaval, writing music of the highest quality in every genre except the madrigal. As this workshop falls a few days after Ash Wednesday, our programme is penitential, expressive and impassioned. From the solemn ritual of Memento homo, a setting of the words uttered by the priest on Ash Wednesday, to deeply personal motets such as Ad Dominum cum tribularer which seems to articulate the plight of recusant Catholics, Byrd’s music is a synthesis of tradition, feeling and conviction.
As ever, final choices depend on numbers signing up (especially in the Tenor and Bass parts!), but this is the expected repertoire:
Byrd, Emendemus in melius a5
Byrd, Memento homo a6
Byrd, Miserere mei a5
Byrd, Bow thine ear a5
Byrd, Ad Dominum cum tribularer a8