Diary

Last updated: 16 August 2023

For more information on concerts, special services and workshops I am giving in the next few months, please see below:

  • Sat
    22
    Oct
    2022
    7:30 pmSt Giles in the Fields 60 St Giles High Street London WC2H 8LG

    The Renaissance Singers, dir. by David Allinson

    The sunny setting of Ave Maria by Robert Parsons is rightly one of the best-loved motets in the Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems. Yet most of his works languish in obscurity.

    In his 450th anniversary year the Renaissance Singers shine a light on Parsons, one of the great musical talents of Tudor England, whose death by drowning at the age of 36 evoked this tribute from music copyist Robert Dow: 'Parsons, you who were so great in the springtime of life, How great you would have been in the autumn, had not death intervened.'

    From the searing drama of his Responds for the Dead to the sweet warmth of his canticles for the new Anglican evensong, Parsons’ music is revealed as endlessly inspired and expressive.

    Our programme sets Parsons in context with rich music for evening services by contemporaries Tallis, White, Sheppard, Mundy and Byrd on themes of sleep, light and salvation.

    Advance Tickets: £12/ £10 (concessions)  Availability limited to 30 tickets only. Once sold out, tickets will be available at the standard price of £14/ £12 (concession).

    Booking: https://www.renaissancesingers.com

  • Sat
    05
    Nov
    2022
    10:30 amSt Catharine's College Chapel

    Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) was the greatest composer to emerge in German-speaking lands before J.S. Bach. While his style is utterly distinctive, his music fascinatingly combines classical Palestrinian counterpoint with the latest Italian innovations in texture and harmony, all overlaid with a vividly expressive Lutheran attitude to text. The effect is dramatic, emotional and thoroughly human. While much of his music demands instruments and soloists, for this workshop day with David Allinson we will focus on the full-textured choral music of the Geistlich Chormusik (Op.11), published in 1648. The programme, to commemorate the 350th anniversary of Schütz’s death, is crowned by the astonishing late setting of the Magnificat, Meine Seele erhebt den Herren for double choir.

    Places cost £25. Advance booking is essential.

    In order to ensure a balanced ensemble, a waiting list will operate if numbers in a particular voice-part become over-subscribed. Bookings will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis.

    **update 30 Sept: 1 Tenor and 1 Bass place remaining; waiting list for Sop and Alto.

    Book via: https://www.cambridgeearlymusic.org

  • Sat
    10
    Dec
    2022
    7:30 pmTBC (check Renaissance Singers website)

    The Renaissance Singers presents a programme of meditative, awestruck and joyful music for the festive season, focusing on the infant Jesus and his mother. This recital showcases two unjustly neglected masters of the expressive, flowing style of imitative polyphony that was perfected by generations of Franco-Flemish musicians during the 16th century, following the trail blazed by Josquin, and which was sought after in every European court and cathedral. 

    The music of Loyset Piéton (fl.c.1530-45) survives mostly in Italian sources but was copied and performed across Western Europe. His Christmas antiphon, O beata infantia, is a masterclass in emotive, lyrical writing. Géry de Ghersem (c.1573-1630) is even more obscure, yet this Tournai-born musician held exalted positions at the courts of Madrid and Brussels. Tragically, all but one of his works were destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. What survives is a corker of a Mass, based on the most celebrated Marian motet by Francisco Guerrero, Ave Virgo Sanctissima

    While many Flemish composers used Guerrero’s masterpiece as the inspiration for new music; Ghersem takes his tribute to the next level, expanding the five part texture to seven voices and adding complexity, so that the Mass becomes a scintillating fantasia on its source material. 

    Guerrero (1528-99) was called by contemporaries ‘el cantor de Maria’; his music for Mary has a special fervency and dignity. Along with his masterpiece motet, Ave Virgo Sanctissima, this evening of musical discoveries and revelations will be topped off with other works by the Spanish master, both motets for the Virgin and lighter villancicos in Spanish. Feliz navidad!

    Booking: tickets will be available in advance from https://www.renaissancesingers.com.

  • Sun
    11
    Dec
    2022
    4:30 pmSt Mary's church, Kenardington, Kent. TN26 2NQ

    Part of Saxon Shore Early Music Kenardington.

    The Renaissance Singers presents a programme of meditative, awestruck and joyful music for the festive season, focusing on the infant Jesus and his mother. This recital showcases two unjustly neglected masters of the expressive, flowing style of imitative polyphony that was perfected by generations of Franco-Flemish musicians during the 16th century, following the trail blazed by Josquin, and which was sought after in every European court and cathedral. 

    The music of Loyset Piéton (fl.c.1530-45) survives mostly in Italian sources but was copied and performed across Western Europe. His Christmas antiphon, O beata infantia, is a masterclass in emotive, lyrical writing. Géry de Ghersem (c.1573-1630) is even more obscure, yet this Tournai-born musician held exalted positions at the courts of Madrid and Brussels. Tragically, all but one of his works were destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. What survives is a corker of a Mass, based on the most celebrated Marian motet by Francisco Guerrero, Ave Virgo Sanctissima

    While many Flemish composers used Guerrero’s masterpiece as the inspiration for new music; Ghersem takes his tribute to the next level, expanding the five part texture to seven voices and adding complexity, so that the Mass becomes a scintillating fantasia on its source material. 

    Guerrero (1528-99) was called by contemporaries ‘el cantor de Maria’; his music for Mary has a special fervency and dignity. Along with his masterpiece motet, Ave Virgo Sanctissima, this evening of musical discoveries and revelations will be topped off with other works by the Spanish master, both motets for the Virgin and lighter villancicos in Spanish. Feliz navidad!

    Booking: https://ssemk.org.