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:
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Tue03Nov20207:30 pmOnline
Online live talk for Thames Valley Early Music Forum (TVEMF), focusing on Jean Richafort's Missa pro defunctis. Details and booking will be found here.
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Sat28Nov202010:00 amOnline
A live talk for the North West Early Music Forum
William Byrd's last two publications, the Gradualia of 1605 and 1607, are a summation of his skill: mercurial, concise and utterly beautiful settings of the texts required to celebrate Catholic Mass on all the important days of the year.
In a year like no other, NWEMF marks the start of Advent with this live online talk by David Allinson. For this seasonal talk (open to all) David will look at Byrd’s motets for Advent: Rorate caeli, Tollite portas, Ave Maria and Ecce Virgo concipiet.
Scores will be sent round electronically in advance, and participants are encouraged to mark up the music as David explores their texts, structure and expressive power. Although it won’t be possible to sing together, you will be able to sing along, muted, when the music is played; there will also be an opportunity to ask questions.
Members of NWEMF can attend for free and will have five days' priority booking. For everyone else, booking costs £5. Book using the form here.
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Wed16Dec20207:30 pmOnline via Zoom
A live talk for the North East Early Music Forum
As Christmas approaches, in a year like no other, NEEMF spends a December evening exploring two of the greatest Renaissance motets in honour of the Virgin Mary.
Mouton’s Nesciens Mater is a celebrated canonic wonder, in which four parts are strictly followed by four more, to create an expressive and apparently effortless eight-part tapestry conjuring up the image of Mary nursing the infant Jesus. The luminous polyphony of Verdelot is less well known, but Beata es, Virgo Maria is scintillating: structured around two cantus fermi the seven-part texture is rich and lyrical. Both pieces are pinnacles of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic art.
Scores will be sent round electronically in advance, and participants are encouraged to mark up the music as David explores the context, structure, meaning and performing challenges of each piece. Although it won’t be possible to sing together, you will be able to sing along, muted, when the music is played; there will also be an opportunity to ask questions at the end.