Category: Cantabile

The Cantabile Renaissance Band

News of the week of October 15, 2013

Meeting Report

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place.

We are a little low on people for the dropin format we’ve been
using. It depends on my transcribing something on Tuesday morning
which we can play on Tuesday night. This means I
have to pick a piece with a number of parts that we will be able
to play. Some people even expect a dropin group with a variety of
voices and instruments to play only
pieces with the exact number of parts that there are people
present, so that no part is doubled.

So I would appreciate knowing by Tuesday morning if you’re
planning to come on Tuesday evening. It would also be good if
people could plan to come on time and stay until the end of the meeting.

Report on the week of September 30, 2013

We played:

Schedule

Next week, October 8, we will deviate from our usual format.
Some people want to go see Marilyn Horne teach a masterclass in
Jordan Hall at 7 PM. Other people will be rehearsing for the
Harvard Square English Country Dance at 7:45 pm at my place. The
Masterclass is free and open to the public. The Country Dance
rehearsal is open to anyone who likes playing English Country
Dance music, but one assumes that if you want to play it on
Tuesday, you would also like to play the
actual dance on
Friday, October 11 at Harvard-Epworth Church.

That link has a
list of the tunes we will be working on. They’re all in Barnes (I
or II); let me know in advance if you’re coming and won’t be able to bring your books.

After that we will resume our usual schedule, meeting on
Tuesdays at 7:45 at my place.

Other Playing Opportunity

I think I haven’t pushed the West Gallery Quire
lately — if you sing or play a melody instrument, you should try
it out. Sunday, October 13, will be a particularly good day to do
that,
since Sheila and Edwin Macadam, two of the leaders of the West
Gallery rediscovery, will be leading the group.

Other partying opportunities

If you vote in Cambridge, I’m having a get-together at 7pm on Wednesday, October 9 for City
Council candidate Dennis Carlone.

The Boston Wort Processors
will be having their annual cider picnic on Sunday, October 20 at
noon. Let me know if you’d be interested in going and maybe doing
some playing. It’s in Amesbury, so we’d probably want to
carpool.

A note on this week’s transcriptions

Xavier Verhelst, who did a lot of transcription for the edition
of Ortiz
that John Tyson and I did,
sent me the edition he’s done recently of Constanze Festa’s
Il Primo Libro de Madrigale. His editions are done
with Sibelius (which I can’t read), and don’t have barlines, but do
come as a score, so to use it in our group, I used a web service
called Partifi to get the
individual parts.

If we end up working on some of them, I will probably
transcribe them in our usual format, but for running through them
to see if we like them, this is good.

News of the week of September 3, 2013

Meeting report

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place.

Other playing opportunities

Open band English country Dance

Jean Monroe writes:

Hope you will let the Renband know that the next Open Band at the
Harvard Sq English Country Dance will be Friday, Oct 11, and will be
led by Ishmael Stefanov-Wagner! Caller will be Barbara Finney. Tunes
will be available as much beforehand as we and the caller can
manage. I’ll send out a detailed email closer to the date, but as
usual there will be an optional-but-valuable workshop/rehearsal from
6:15 – 7:15 and the dance will run 7:30 – 9:30 at the Harvard-Epworth
Church, 1555 Mass Ave Cambridge.

Renaissance Ensemble at New England Conservatory

John Tyson writes:

We would like to let you know about a special opportunity for students
of Early Music.

The New England Conservatory of Music Renaissance Ensemble offers in
depth study and performance opportunity for serious students of all
instruments, both early and modern, and voice.

Repertoire will include:

A wide variety of Polyphonic Chamber Music and Dance Music

Improvisation and Ornamentation

An introduction to the beauty and joy of reading from original
notation

Thank you very much for sharing this with your friends and students.
For more information.

News of the week of July 16, 2013

Meeting report, July 16

We had a plucked string player for the first time in quite a while, so
we did all

Dowland

all the time

Meeting report addendum, July 9

Somebody complained that I didn’t list the specific

Weelkes

pieces
last week, so here they are:

Schedule

We will be meeting regularly on
Tuesday nights at 7:45 PM at

my place

.

News of the week of July 9

Not directly Cantabile news, but my mother died on June 20, which has
affected Cantabile communications somewhat.

Meeting report, June 25, 2013

This was as close to not having a meeting (when one was scheduled) as
we’ve come for several years. I’m told there were some recorder duets
before I got there, but one of the recorder players had turned into a
pumpkin at 9, so when I got there at 9:15, Ishmael, who had opened up
on time, was packing up. We considered playing some more duets, but
we both had early days the next morning, and I still had both writing
and printing to do before my mother’s funeral the next morning, so we
split a beer and called it a night. This doesn’t happen very often,
and I don’t expect it to happen again for another few years.

Meeting report, July 2, 2013

We played:

Meeting report, July 9, 2013

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting regularly on
Tuesday nights at 7:45 PM at

my place

.

News of the week of June 18

Meeting report, June 4, 2013

We played:

Meeting report, June 18, 2013

We played:

Schedule

We will be meeting regularly on
Tuesday nights at 7:45 PM at

my place

.