October: If you’ve been to Monteconero you’ll understand why I find it impossible to tear myself away. It’s partly its fairy-tale situation, a monastery surrounded by oak forest on a mountain top on the Adriatic coast, but also that it has very much a family-run feeling about it: the current padrone, Augusto (his grandmother started the hotel in the 1950s) is always there, slicing prosciutto for the antipasto or perhaps even sweeping the courtyard. This year’s Music at Monteconero will be directed by Patrick Craig, whose programme is based on settings of When David heard. Recent Monteconero weeks have filled rather quickly, so don’t leave it too long if you’re thinking of coming, especially if you are a soprano or a bass.
One of this year’s highpoints was leading the Victoria commemorations in his home city of Ávila . The culmination of the course was a concert in the cathedral on the actual date of the quatercentenary of Victoria’s death. We performed the monumental Missa Laetatus sum with three choirs of twenty, five sackbuts of Il Nuovo Chiaroscuro and a bajón. The bishop and 700 other Abulense came to listen and the whole event made quite a stir in the Spanish press. The Victoria commemorations continue with two events in London organised by the Iberian and Latin American Music Society: a symposium on Saturday 29 October and a Victoria Requiem from scratch in St Peter’s Eaton Square, directed by Carlos Aransay on Saturday 26 November. You would be very welcome at both events.
February: Details of the Victoria quatercentenary course in Ávila are now on the Lacock web site. The concert in the cathedral on the actual date of Victoria’s death will be the city’s main event to commemorate its famous son and Spain’s greatest composer – quite an honour to entrusted with. Carlos Aransay has come up with a programme which draws in the other notable composers to which Ávila can lay claim, Vivanco and Cabezon, and even its two mystic poets, Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross. Thanks to a tie-in with Caja Ávila, the local savings bank, our rehearsals will be in a Renaissance palace that now functions as an arts centre.
This perhaps is the point to mention that from time to time I am contacted by people who says that the entrance requirements to Lacock courses look a bit onerous these days and wonder whether they are good enough. I usually reply that if you have the self-awareness to ask, then the answer is probably yes. I purposely make the wording sound a bit fierce to put off those who just want a singing holiday with good company. Lacock courses are for those with a real ambition to work hard to improve their choral skills – wherever they are starting from – and leave the week better singers than when they arrived.
Of the courses that have been announce previously, The Corsham Voice Workshop with Ghislaine Morgan jut before Easter is more-or-less full; we could take just a couple more. Because of the nature of the course we are keeping the numbers fairly low. Eamonn Dougan’s deferred week at Monteconero filled up in a few weeks when it was announced last autumn. If a good tenor or bass came forward now we could probably squeeze him in, but I’m afraid we’ve been having to turn away sopranos and altos for several months. The course in Mexico kicks off in less than four weeks. There’ll be just over thirty of us: ten young Mexicans, two or three from the US and the rest from Europe. It’ll be a great thrill to sing music from the Puebla Cathedral Choirbooks in the cathedral itself.
Finally, having disappointed many by announcing that the Lacock choral evensong weekends in notable churches in the Netherlands were to stop, I am now delighted to say that Angela Thomas and Rosie Holder have agreed to carry on the tradition. I wish them well and have just heard that their first weekend will be in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam (Sweelinck’s church) under the direction of Paul Spicer, on 3 and 4 September this year.
