Early Music Monday

Today we get to chat a bit about Renaissance Christmas music and the 2024 Canadian Renaissance Music Summer School, with the director Greg Skidmore. Greg sings in a number of professional chamber choir ensembles throughout the UK and elsewhere.

The CRMSS fundariser, "Buy a Bar" can be found here.

For CRMSS Registration information, please visit their website.

Featuring a performance of Thomas Tallis's 40-voice metet, Spem in Alium, performed by I Fagiolini, found on YouTube. 

We get an exclusive sneak peak at some tracks on the upcoming album Penitence & Lamentations by the Byrd Ensemble, conducted by Markdavin Obenza. We sit down with Markdavin and have a conversation about several of the tracks on the upcoming record, which comes out Friday, November 3, 2023, including a new commission by Nico Muhly.

Follow the Byrd Ensemble on:
Facebook
Instagram

Today we get an exclusive look into the upcoming album of Josquin's music with Dr. Jesse Rodin, a professor at Stanford University and Artistic Director/Conductor of Cut Circle. This album is the group's first installment of what will be a series of albums on Josquin's music. Dr. Rodin's research on Josquin has lead to some significant discoveries/conclusions regarding attribution of work and the "Josquin canon".

You can follow Cut Circle on social media:
Facebook
Instagram
Youtube

Purchase their new album here on November 3, 2023:
Musique en Wallonie

Stream album on Apple Music and Spotify on November 3, 2023

#soundofageschoir

A great pleasure to have I Fagiolini Director Robert Hollingworth along with Baritone Greg Skidmore for an exclusive interview about I Fagiolini's upcoming album "Missa Tu Es Petrus", featuring the previously unrecorded work of the same title by 17th Century Italian Composer Orazio Benevoli. Go download on your favorite streaming service on October 6, 2023 (or the album is available for purchase. 

You can stay up to date on all things I Fagiolini on their website and social media pages.
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

For more information about the MA program at University of York, click here.

For more information about #SingtheScore, follow the link to watch on YouTube.

See what Greg is up to with his Canadian Renaissance Music Summer School (Which we will be having an episode about coming up) here.

www.soundofageschoir.com

On today's episode, we walk through the concert program for Sound of Ages upcoming Evensong concert. As part of their Evensong concert series, the Autumnal Equinox Evensong theme is opposites and gratitude. There are only a few tickets left so don't miss out, get your tickets here.

Dr. Andrew Huberman podcast episode about gratitude.

Tenebrae performing Part I of Ne Irascaris, Domine by William Byrd.
Tenebrae's website. Check out all their recordings here.
Sansara's live recording of Hubert Parry's I Know My Soul Hath Power.
The Tallis Scholars performing Part II of Ne Irascaris, Domine.

Here is a link to the Byrd score found on cpdl.org.

Check out all of Sound of Ages' upcoming events by visiting our website. 

Today we get to have a fantastic 'Improversation' if you will, with Dr.  Peter Schubert. 

Peter Schubert came to Montreal from New York City, where he founded and directed Opera Uptown and The New Calliope Singers, a group renowned for its commitment to modern music during its fifteen-year career. The group presented over fifty premieres and released a critically acclaimed CD entitled "New Cantatas and Madrigals."

Since 1991, he has conducted the highly respected Montreal-based group, The Orpheus Singers. Under his direction, the group has placed as a finalist several times the CBC Competition for Amateur Choruses, winning first prize in the chamber chorus category in 1996. The Orpheus Singers has presented premieres of several new Canadian works and participated in a CD of the musical compositions of Freidrich Nietzsche.

In 1998, Peter Schubert founded VivaVoce, a professional vocal ensemble, to stimulate interest in choral chamber music ranging from the Renaissance to the day before yesterday. By presenting unique, interactive "commentated concerts" in schools and concert halls, VivaVoce delights and entertains it audiences of all ages, instilling in them a deeper understanding of their musical heritage.

Schubert holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University, which gives him a rich base on which to draw for his commentated concerts. Currently an Associate Professor at the McGill University Faculty of Music, Schubert is the author of a groundbreaking and highly regarded textbook, Modal Counterpoint, Renaissance Style (Oxford University Press, 1999). With colleague Christoph Neidhoefer he also co-authored Baroque Counterpoint (Prentice-Hall, 2005).

Peter Schubert studied conducting with Nadia Boulanger, Helmuth Rilling, Jacques-Louis Monod and David Gilbert and has been assistant to Gregg Smith and Agnes Grossman. He has published an edition of Renaissance Noels as well as his own innovative arrangements of five popular Christmas carols with C.F. Peters.

Listen to Viva Voce's performance of Gombert's Domine, si tu es. 

Check out Dr. Schubert's YouTube channel to see recordings of ensembles he conducts, improvisation techniques, and more.

Here is a link to the Sistine Chapel recording as referenced in the interview.

Dr. Schubert's page on McGill University's faculty website. 

Today we get to have a fantastic conversation with Professor Megan Long of Oberlin College & Conservatory.

Megan Kaes Long studies European song traditions of the 16th and 17th centuries and the theoretical discourses that describe them. Her book, Hearing Homophony: Tonal Expectation at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020 and won the Society for Music Theory's Wallace Berry Award in 2021.

Long’s articles have appeared in Music Theory Spectrum, the Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Online, and Open Access Musicology and her research has been supported by grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her 2018 article, “Cadential Syntax and Tonal Expectation in Late Sixteenth-Century Homophony” won the Society for Music Theory’s Emerging Scholar Award.

Long is the editor of SMT-V, the Society for Music Theory’s peer-reviewed video-journal. Long is also a mezzo-soprano who specializes in music of the Renaissance and Baroque eras.

Long's work was honored with Oberlin College & Conservatory's Excellence in Teaching Award for the 2021-22 academic year.

Check out the articles mentioned in the show by following the links below:

Your Brain On Hexichordal Solmization

Hexachordal Solmization and Syllable-Invariant Counterpoint in the Vocal Music of William Byrd

Rebecca Cypess's article on "thin notation": https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/translation-and-the-ideas-of-early-music/ 

Recording of William Byrd's Come Woeful Orpheus by The Sixteen found on YouTube. 

Today we get a follow up conversation with Nigel Short where he walks us through Joby Talbot's Path of Miracles. The conversation is interspersed with audio clips from each movement.

Watch Tenebrae perform Path of Miracles live from La Basilique de Saint-Denis in France.

Tenebrae's album of Path of Miracles can be found on their website, Apple Music, Spotify, and wherever music is streamed. 

Today we get to chat with Nigel Short, Conductor and Artistic Director of Tenebrae Choir. We get to hear his journey as a singer, the genesis of Tenebrae choir, Nigel's approach to choral singing, his thoughts about renaissance music and more!

Nigel's Bio:  
Award-winning conductor Nigel Short has earned widespread acclaim for his recording and live performance work with leading orchestras and ensembles across the world.

Tenebrae are special. Directed by Nigel Short, these were exemplary performances, lucid, and so commanding it seemed as if singing perfectly in tune was the most natural thing in the world.

– The Guardian

A former member of renowned vocal ensemble The King’s Singers, in 2001 Nigel formed Tenebrae, a virtuosic choir that combines the passion of a cathedral choir with the precision of a chamber ensemble. Under his direction, Tenebrae has collaborated with internationally acclaimed orchestras and instrumentalists and now enjoys a reputation as one of the world’s finest vocal ensembles. Nigel has conducted the choir at some of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals, including the BBC Proms, Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Rheingau Musik Festival and Sydney Festival.

“…the highly impressive Tenebrae directed by Nigel Short pull out all the vocal stops at the right moments.

– Gramophone Magazine

To date, Nigel has conducted the majority of the UK’s leading orchestras, including the Academy of Ancient Music, Aurora Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, English Concert, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Other orchestral recordings include Mozart’s Requiem with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Nigel has also appeared as guest conductor with the BBC Singers, Leipzig’s MDR Rundfunkchor and the Danish National Vocal Ensemble.

Nigel Short’s superb musical sensitivity to phrasing and texture illuminates everything… the endless dovetailing of the musical lines, all within an overall architectural vision, is exquisitely sustained.

– BBC Music Magazine

Nigel has vast recording experience having conducted for many of the world’s major labels including Decca Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, LSO Live and Signum, as well as having contributed to a number of high-profile film soundtracks. In 2018, he received a Grammy nomination in the category of ‘Best Choral Performance’ for Tenebrae’s album of parts songs from the British Isles, Music of the Spheres. As a Gramophone award-winning producer, Nigel works with many of the UK’s leading professional choirs and vocal ensembles including Alamire, Ex Cathedra, Gallicantus and The King’s Singers.

Tenebrae reveals itself as one of those exceptional choirs whose individual singers have been moulded into a single superbly sensitive and responsive musical instrument.

– The Telegraph

YouTube recording of Tenebrae performing Allegri's Miserere

Visit:
Tenebrae Choir Website
Visit Sound of Ages YouTube and Facebook

Today we talk through Andrew's newest piece commissioned by Sound of Ages for their Sing Actually narrative concert: Poor Richard's Madrigal. This piece pays homage to Thomas Morley's Now Is the Month of Maying. We discuss comedy, madrigals,  and much more. Check out the live performance ofPoor Richard's Madrigal on YouTube.  

You can find the King's Singers performance of Now Is the Month of Maying video on YouTube as well.