SINGING IN VENICE
a course for choral singers led by Erik Van Nevel, 10 to 15 October 2010

This is an invitation to choral singers of all ages to a week of music in a church in Venice. We rehearse a programme of 16th and early 17th century Venetian music for a public concert. The course is conducted in English. The general aim is to study an important area of choral repertoire with a leading exponent in the field.

The week will be based in the Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, housed in the group of buildings surrounding the courtyard to the left of the large church (Gesuati) in the picture. We will rehearse in the smaller church, Santa Maria della Visitazione, with its attractive Lombardian façade and the earliest painted ceiling in Venice. It is on the Giudecca waterfront in the Dorsoduro sestiere; the large white building behind is the Accademia.

Te Deum Patrem ingenitum ~ Adrian Willaert
Fulgebunt iusti ~ Cipriano de Rore
Caro mea ~ Andrea Gabrieli
Regina coeli laetare ~ Marc'Antonio Ingenieri
Beata es Virgo ~ Giovanni Gabrieli
Laetaniae della Beata Vergine ~ Claudio Monteverdi
Alma Redemptoris Mater ~ Francesco Cavalli
Salve Regina ~ Francesco Cavalli
Exaudi Deus ~ Alessandro Grandi

The programme will trace the development of Venetian music through the succession of outstanding composers associated with the basilica of San Marco. Willaert and Rore were Flemish composers of the generation that followed Josquin. They worked in Venice in the mid 16th century and were very influential in creating what we now think of as the Venetian style. Through cross-fertilisation of their Netherlandish polyphony with native Italian forms and techniques they brought the emotive power of music to new heights and opened the way for the achievements of the Gabrielis and Monteverdi. Adrian Willaert served at the Este court before becoming maestro di cappella at San Marco. He contributed to the birth of the madrigal and the development of the cori spezzati style. He was also an influential teacher and his most outstanding pupil, Cipriano de Rore, succeeded him as maestro. We remember him now primarily as a brilliant madrigalist with a rare combination of contrapuntal skill and expressive genius, a key influence on Palestrina and Monteverdi; his sacred music is often overlooked. Andrea Gabrieli was the first internationally renowned native Italian composer of the Venetian school. He held the post of organist at San Marco, where he developed a grand ceremonial style but showed little interest in publishing his music, much of which was preserved by his nephew Giovanni, who succeeded him in the post. By the beginning of the 17th century Venice had become the pre-eminent in many fields of musical endeavour: composition, performance, printing and publishing, and the design and manufacture of instruments. Giovanni Gabrieli and Monteverdi were ranked among Europe's most celebrated composers, a position to which they have been restored by the revivial of interest in the period during the last hundred years.

As a director, singer and instrumentalist, Erik van Nevel is one of Europe's most distinguished performers of early music. He studied singing and conducting at the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and Antwerp and was choirmaster of Brussels Cathedral from 1983 to 2000, where he founded the Capella Sancti Michaelis. He is founder and director of Currende, an ensemble that appears regularly at the major European Festivals. Their wide-ranging and much lauded discography includes a series of ten CDs providing a broad survey of Franco-Flemish polyphony. Since 1994, Erik and Currende have been given the title 'Cultural Ambassador of Flanders' by the Flemish Community.

The course is designed for the serious amateur musician. You should be a competent sight-reader, have a straight, blending voice with full dynamic range, be used to normal choral discipline and be able to respond quickly to direction – the aim being to combine professional pace of work with amateur enthusiasm. Participants are of all ages and nationalities and come alone, with a friend or partner, or in a group. Erik Van Nevel is experienced at working with amateur musicians and the atmosphere is relaxed and informal.

The plan is to meet for supper on Sunday 10 October. Then from Monday to Friday there will be rehearsal sessions each morning and another at the end of the afternoon. The course ends with a final concert followed by supper in the evening of Friday 15 October. Apart from these two suppers, meals are not included in this course, but group visits to restaurants will be arranged each evening for those interested.

You arrange your own accommodation; Venice is a city given to hospitality, so there is no shortage of choice. The sestieri nearest the church are the eastern part of Dorsoduro and all of San Marco, though given that walking the traffic-free streets and alleys and riding the vaporetti are two of the city's delights, you may be happy to stay further afield. Our base is well positioned for what must be one of the cheapest places to stay in Venice, the Youth Hostel on La Giudecca, just a short vaporetto ride away. There is also accommodation in the Centro Artigianelli itself, though it is sometimes block booked for conferences. We will give you list of suggestions when you register.

Venezia Marco Polo is the nearest airport, and is connected to the city by water taxi, water bus and coach. Treviso (Venice Treviso in Ryanairspeak) is 20 miles inland and has a bus connexion. Those of a romantic disposition may wish to consider arriving by train.

The fee for the course is paid in two parts: a deposit of £230 on registration (this will be returned in full if you have to withdraw before 1 August; after that you may hold it over to another course) and €200 on arrival. The fee includes payment for the music, which will be sent to you in advance, the two suppers on the first and last evenings, but not other meals or accommodation.

Email us for further enquiries about the Singing in Venice.

FOR A REGISTRATION FORM FOR SINGING IN VENICE 2010, CLICK HERE .