This year’s winter school will be in the Shropshire town of Ludlow. The conductor will be Robert Hollingworth, who has come up with a programme built around the music, interests and associates of Peter Warlock. Warlock was one of the people who gave impetus to the early music revival at the beginning of the last century: he became fascinated by the English madrigalists, wrote a biography of Gesualdo and was one of the first to recognise that Orfeo was the first operatic masterpiece. That, together with some of his own music and that of some of his friends, gives us scope for much interesting repertoire. This will be our first venture in Ludlow and we have high expectations – not only does it have a wide range of accommodation of all types, but everyone we met when we went there on our recce was exceptionally welcoming and interested in the project.
In April Ghislaine Morgan will give one of her voice workshops, this time in the 17th century almshouses in Corsham, starting on 6th April, Easter Monday. This the sort of course that all choral singers should try once, especially if you have not had any singing lessons. The idea of holding it in England was to make as cheap as possible – at least for the English. Then in the week of 3 May there will be another “Singing in Venice” in the English Church on the Grand Canal. The director will be Chris Watson, new to Lacock but well known for his wonderful mellifluous tenor voice, membership of the Tallis Scholars and as director of music at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. That will be followed by “Music at Monteconero” in the week of 7 June, and we are very pleased to welcome back the Flemish conductor Erik Van Nevel with a programme of music by two undervalued composers of the Franco-Flemish school: Thomas Crecquillon and Clemens non Papa. We hope to get all the details of these weeks on the web site very shortly, and they will be joined by other courses later in the summer and autumn.
The Lacock Scholars have developed in a way I didn’t foresee when we started giving scholarships to young singers a couple of years ago. There is now a sizeable pool of scholars and they have been having their own reunions and workshops – there is a snatch of them working with Patrick Craig on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tQ2tEkMhwk, and a couple of longer excerpts. We have formed a two-to-a-part consort from their ranks that will launch itself with a series of six performances in London over the coming months. They will be in the splendid Arts and Crafts church of St Cuthbert’s, Philbeach Gardens in Earls Court, by comment agreement one of London’s most dramatic church interiors. Admission will be free and we have tried to find a format that is somewhere between a concert and a service, with a hefty dose of plainchant between the polyphony. The opening performance will be at 6pm on Sunday 28 September when the programme will be the splendid Mass Videte Miraculum by Nicholas Ludford. Do come and support the Lacock Scholars at these events, which I can see turning into reunions of Lacock regulars. Also, if you do happen to run a festival or a concert series, remember that there is a new group eager to come and sing for you.
All this activity means that extra hands are needed to keep everything afloat. Lucy is taking over the general administration, in particular the business of keeping track of who is coming to what, so if you want to come to or ask about any future course, please email her.
If you’ve come to any events actually in Lacock and seen Deborah’s work, you might be interested to hear that a couple of her larger pieces are in exalted company in a major sculpture exhibition in Gloucester Cathedral from now until the end of October: https://www.facebook.com/bbcgloucestershire/photos/pcb.722185784497705/722182884497995/?type=1&theater. Admission is free, and quite apart from the sculpture it’s a good excuse to visit a stunning building dating from the 11th century; though it’s hard to imagine what sort of nincompoop thought it was a good idea to put up a notice in the porch announcing that it was a “Quality Assured Visitor Attraction”.
