Tenby Music Party

Lionel Meunier’s group Vox Luminis has astounded listeners with its unmatched blend and ensemble, achieved without visible direction. In this course Lionel, a great admirer of the British choral tradition, will share some aspects of his revolutionary approach to the interpretation of renaissance music. Central to this approach is the importance of ear training. Some repertoire will be sung from single part notation, which makes it easy for a whole musical phrase to be taken in at a glance and obliges the performer to listen more acutely to the rest of the ensemble. We will also explore some music at the low pitch with the bass part descending to low D, a common sixteenth century practice. Zsuzsi Tóth, for ten years a leading member of Vox Luminis, will offer individual lessons in vocal technique to members of the course. 

Songs of Loss and Regret

Josquin des Prez ~ Cueurs desolez par toute nation
Adriaan Willaert ~ Douleur me bat
Thomas Tallis ~ In iejunio et fletu
John Sheppard ~ In manus tuas
John Sheppard ~ In pace
Robert White ~ Lamentations a 5
William Byrd ~ Ave verum corpus
William Byrd ~ Misere mei Deus
Thomas Weelkes ~ Death hath deprived me
Thomas Tomkins ~ Music divine
John Ward ~ O Lord consider my great moansRobert Ramsey ~ How are the mighty fallen
Henry Purcell ~ Hear my prayer, O Lord

Internationally renowned as the founder and artistic director of the vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, French conductor and bass Lionel Meunier is one of the most dynamic and highly acclaimed artistic leaders in the fields of historical performance and choral music active today. Praised for his detailed yet spirited interpretative approach, he is now increasingly in demand as a guest conductor and artistic director with choirs, ensembles, and orchestras worldwide. The Tenby music Party is his first engagement as a Lacock tutor.
Lionel’s international breakthrough came in 2012 with Vox Luminis’s Gramophone Recording of Year award for their recording of Heinrich Schütz’s Musicalische Exequien. Under his leadership, Vox Luminis has since embarked on extensive concert tours throughout Europe, North America, and Asia; established multi-season artistic residencies at Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh Festival, Utrecht Early Music Festival, and Concertgebouw Bruges; and recorded over a dozen critically acclaimed albums. Their recent recording of Buxtehude won them their second Gramophone Award, for 2019 Choral Recording of the Year.
As a guest conductor, Lionel has worked with Netherlands Bach Society, Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Netherlands Chamber Choir, and the Boston Early Music Festival Collegium and has led projects with Vox Luminis in collaboration with Juilliard 415, Orchestra B’Rock, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and L’Achéron, among many others. Lionel maintains a close relationship with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and Consort, returning regularly to lead collaborative projects with Vox Luminis that cover a wide repertoire. Their first recording together will appear in 2021. Future projects include his debut with the Shanghai Symphony and returns to the Boston Early Music Festival and Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and Consort.
Born in France, Lionel was trained as a singer and recorder player and began his career as a bass in renowned ensembles such as Collegium Vocale Ghent, Amsterdam Baroque Choir, and Capella Pratensis. In 2013, he was awarded the title of Namurois de l’Année (Namur Citizen of the Year) for culture in the Belgian town of Namur, where he lives with his family.

Zsuzsi Tóth was born in Hungary, where she began her musical studies with the piano at the age of seven. She studied singing at the Faculty of Music of the University of Szeged. She went on to specialise in early music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague as a student of Peter Kooij, Jill Feldman and Rita Dams. She also took part in masterclasses given by Martin Klietmann, Mitsuko Shirai, Júlia Hamari, Marius van Altena, László Polgár and Adrienne Csengery. During her studies she won the Huygens Programma Scholarship in The Netherlands.
Zsuzsi has won prizes in several international singing competitions and was the first-prize winner in both the Gyurkovics Mária Singing Competition (Budapest, Hungary 2003) and the Simándy József Singing Competition (Szeged, Hungary 2004). She performs regularly throughout Europe and beyond and has appeared as soloist with Collegium Vocale Gent (Philippe Herreweghe), Nederlandse Bach Vereniging (Jos van Veldhoven), Goeyvaerts Trio, Les Muffatti, Pannon Filharmonikusok and Tetraktys. She has been a leading light of Vox Luminis (Lionel Meunier) for ten years. Her discography includes numerous recordings with Collegium Vocale Gent, Vox Luminis and medieval music ensemble Tetraktys, the Bach motets and the Schütz madrigals with Sette Voci  and discs of contemporary music with Sete Lagrimas and Goeyvaerts Trio.

Tenby
Tenby, a harbour town in Pembrokeshire is one of Wales’s lesser-known delights, with its 13^th century town walls, picturesque houses, jumble of streets and several sandy beaches. The ruins of Tenby Castle are on a headland overlooking the harbour. Exhibits at Tenby Museum and Art Gallery include the Tenby Gun, a nine-foot-long breech-loading Tudor cannon. The Tudor Merchant’s House recreates domestic life in 1500,

with a merchant’s shop and working kitchen. There are excellent coastal walks right on the doorstep, including the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path.
The course will be held in the town’s magnificent Grade I church, St Mary’s, which is in the centre of the town. Most of the building dates from the 15^th century with some features from the 13^th. The 13^th century chancel has a wagon roof and the panelled ceiling has 75 bosses carved in a variety of designs including foliage, grotesques, fish, a mermaid and a green man, as well as the figure of Jesus surrounded by the four Apostles. The tower also dates from the 13^th century. Two chapels, the spire, the font and a bell cast with the name ‘Sancta Anna’ all date from the 15^th century.

The course
Our plan will be to meet for a 5pm session on Sunday the 5th of May. Then from Monday to Friday our timetable will be:
9.30 – 11.00 first session
11.00 – 11.30 break
11.30 – 13.00 second session
13.00 – 17.00 long break
17.00 – 19.00 third session
We will arrange a supper for everyone together on the last evening (not included in the fee for the course), but let the party split into smaller groups on the other evenings. We’ll give a public performance in the evening of Friday the 10th of May.

Travel and accommodation
Tenby has a railway station on the Pembroke Dock branch of the West Wales Line operated by Transport for Wales Rail. The nearest airport is Cardiff. The M4 motorway and its continuation the A40 come within half an hour of the town. Tenby caters for a large number of summer visitors, so in May you can expect hotel and b&b accommodation will be easy to find.

Fees and enrolment
The fee for the course is £660, paid in two parts: a deposit of £330 (or the equivalent in euros) on registration and £330 by the end of March. The deposit may be credited to another course if you have to withdraw and we are able to allocate your place to another singer. The fee includes payment for the music booklet, which will be sent to you in advance, but not meals, travel or accommodation. The Tenby Music Party is a course for invited singers, but if you have not received an invitation you may register an interest using the form below.