HAY-ON-WYE WINTER SCHOOL
a course for choral singers led by JanJoost van Elburg
27 December 2010 to 1 January 2011
A week of music-making for choral singers in the bookshop town of Hay-on-Wye, on the border of England and Wales. We rehearse every day in the morning and late afternoon with a distinguished conductor for a concert at the end of the course. The Winter School is a tradition dating back to 1990; it has usually been held in Lacock itself, but occasionally at other places, such as the tiny village of Zennor on the Cornish coast near Land's End. The aim is always to combine serious and dedicated singing with as much good cheer as possible.
Women in Music Our programme is a celebration of women in music. The six pieces from the late Renaissance are in praise of, or
addressed to, female saints: Cecilia, Barbara and the Virgin Mary. They are settings of some of the most popular texts available to composers of sacred music, which add an extra emotional dimension to the process of veneration.
Britten's Hymn to St Cecilia presents the choral singer with many challenges and is also notable for W H Auden's powerful poetry, here incontrovertably an equal partner of the music. The important Flemish composer and musical
administrator Raymond Schroyens was born in 1933. His simple but surprisingly effective settings of the New England poet Emily Dickinson date from the early eighties.
Peter Phillips: Cecilia Virgo
Orlando Lassus: Cantantibus organis Caecilia virgo
Francisco Guerrero: Gaude Barbara
Francisco Guerrero: Regina caeli
Giovanni Gabrieli: Beata es Virgo Maria
William Byrd: Beata es Maria
Benjamin Britten: Hymn to St Cecilia
Raymond Schroyens: Six Dickinson Miniatures for choir
JanJoost van Elburg
studied choral conducting and singing at Rotterdam Conservatory and now lives in Amsterdam. His association with Lacock courses goes back to 1998, when he enrolled as a student on the Casares Easter Music week in Andalusia. His outstanding gifts as a musician, vocal coach and director were immediately apparent and he has since become a regular director of Lacock courses: in England (including the celebrated 2007 performance of the Monteverdi Vespers at the Lacock Summer School), Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Cyprus. Through these courses he has been much in demand in England, and has been conductor of The Reading Bach Choir, The Bartholomew Consort of Oxford and The Renaissance Singers of London.
Hay-on-Wye is a quiet country town just inside the Welsh border. Since 1962 it has become famous as the town with over thirty secondhand bookshops, and boasts "more books per square mile than any other place", a
claim as difficult to refute as to substantiate. Just under the northern slopes of the Black Mountains, it is surrounded by excellent walking country; two long-distance paths, Offa's Dyke and Wye Valley, meet in the town. The plan is to
start the Winter School with an afternoon (5pm-7pm) session on Monday 27 December. All rehearsals will be held in the Parish Hall in Lion Street in the centre of the town. Then from Tuesday to Friday there will be rehearsals from
9.30am to 1pm and from 5pm to 7pm. The schedule on Saturday 1st January will be slightly different and will include a public performance in the parish church, St Mary's, in the early evening, followed by supper which will mark the
end of the course. Some of the music will be printed in a booklet which will be sent to you before the course. You are asked to bring copies of the other pieces; we will tell you how these may be ordered online.
You arrange your own accommodation: we will send you an illustrated booklet listing the hotels, inns, guest houses, farm house and self-catering options when you
register. There is also helpful information on the Hay-on-Wye town web site. The fee for the course is £395, paid in two parts: a deposit of £195 or a sterling cheque for £195 payable to A van der Beek online transfer of £195 to account 00703787, sort code12-11-03, or for international transfers, in the Netherlands, a transfer of € elsewhere in the Euro area, transfer of € FOR A REGISTRATION FORM FOR THE HAY-ON-WYE WINTER SCHOOL 2010,
IBAN GB02 BOFS 1211 0300 7037 87, BIC BOFSGB21238