There was no meeting. Our hostess was indisposed.
We will meet on Tuesday, October 5 at 7:45 pm and the home of Wendy Goble and Richard Schmeidler in Arlington Center. Please let me, Wendy, and Richard know if you plan to come.
The idea is to give a session where the audience is invited to sing simple polyphony that was written to be sung in social settings. We’ll use our favorites from the Ravenscroft presentation we gave in 2011, and also add rounds and part songs from the rest of our repertoire, including the two songs about the plague that we’ve added this year.
I was thinking of something like Folk Polyphony: from the Tudors to the Georgians or Folk Polyphony: From Court to Catch Club. Discussing it with Richard Schmeidler, I gave Pasttime with good company as an example of what we’re going to sing, and he suggested that would be a good title.
The thirteen page booklet we gave out in 2011 turned out to be a little short – I think we ended up repeating some favorites after we’d sung it all. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I think we can remove only a few things and add a bunch more for this year.
It looks like we already removed a few things when we redid the book for the Walk for Hunger in 2013. I would say we could remove a couple more rounds (e.g. Oaken Leaves and Jolly Shepherd), but I really like all three of those part songs.
So here’s the proposed list:
I welcome suggestions for both deletions and additions.
Past time with good company
The Cantabile Renaissance Band plays and sings the music that was sung in social settings in the sixteenth century (and thereabouts). This session will invite the audience to participate in rounds and simple part songs. The repertoire will be in English and not require counting after the first entrance. Music will be supplied. It will come from sources like the book of songs Henry VIII used for singing at feasts, the books of music that Thomas Ravenscroft collected for home use, the rounds used by the catch clubs in 17th century London, and songs about the plague of London in 1665.
The audience will participate in rounds and simple part songs. Music will be supplied. We will sing about eating, drinking, love, birds, death, and “Publick Sickness”, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Here’s what I put in my application. At some point they might tell me where I can see and edit the description and membership of the group.
We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm. Our September 28 meeting will be at the home of Wendy Grey in Newton Corner. Please let both me and Wendy know if you want to come.
Enough people expressed interest in doing an in-person NEFFA program that I am working on a proposal. The current working title is Folk Polyphony: from the Tudors to the Georgians.
Let me know if you want to provide input.
We will meet next on September 21 at 7:45 pm at Stuart’s in Somerville. Please let both me and Stuart know if you’re planning to come.
We’ve been playing through the Morley Canzonets for three voices since we resumed meeting after the shutdown. We will be finished with that in the next month or so.
I think the idea of regularly reading a different piece in the same style every week is a good one. Over the summer, it was a good thing that we were reading three part pieces, because we often had only three people. (The couple of times there were fewer than that, we didn’t meet.) It could be that people will soon stop doing so much whizzing around all over the country and we will have four or five people most of the time.
I would welcome input into what other works would be good to read through. So far ideas include Dowland Book 1, Rhau Tricinia, and Byrd trios.
We were reading through the Rore “Primo Libro di Madrigali” before the shutdown. It was too difficult for the group as it existed then, and is too many parts (5) for the group as it exists now. But if a couple of people who were really interested in doing that were to start coming…
In 2013, we did a session at NEFFA of music by Ravenscroft. We had half a dozen group members sitting on a platform at the front of the classroom, and printed out a booklet of the music we were playing and invited the audience to sing along. We and the audience enjoyed it, and we got pretty good reviews for it.
We’ve thought about doing it again, but haven’t had the commitment or repertoire at the point when applications needed to happen
If we did it this year, we would have to apply by October 17. We have 5 people who have been coming pretty regularly, which is enough to do something like that if they all want to commit to a given repertoire and to performing on the NEFFA weekend (April 22-24).
So if you’d like to do something with us at NEFFA, let me know.
Unfortunately, the current version of plague theater has deprived the Boston Recorder Society of a place to meet in person, so they will be continuing to meet virtually, at least for the fall. The recorders are meeting by Zoom, playing muted duets with the coach, but the loud winds are meeting with Jamulus coached by Liza Malamut, which gives you some of the social and musical benefits of meetings. Loud Winds is an elastic term – we might have a violin; there’s one recorder player who isn’t interested in the Zoom meetings; there’s a trombone player who likes to switch to singing pretty often; and there’s a crumhorn player whose lip can’t handle a whole meeting so she switches to recorders when it gives out. It isn’t ideal, but I recommend it if you haven’t been having enough ensemble playing.
The first meeting is this Sunday, September 19, from 7:30 to 9:00. (6:30 to 8:00 for the recorder zoom duets.) You can sign up at their website.
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We played:
We will not meet on Tuesday, September 7.
We will meet on Tuesday, September 14 at 7:45 pm at the home of Wendy Grey in Newton Corner. Please let both me and Wendy know if you’re planning to come.
http://serpentpublications.org/drupal7/?q=piecepage/193We will meet on Tuesday, August 31 at 7:45 pm at the home of Wendy Grey in Newton Corner. Please let both me and Wendy know if you are planning to come.
The following Tuesday, September 7, we will not be meeting, as both of our hosts will be out of town.
We will meet on Tuesday, August 31 at 7:45 pm at the home of Wendy Grey in Newton Corner. Please let both me and Wendy know if you are planning to come.
The following Tuesday, September 7, we will not be meeting, as both of our hosts will be out of town.
We will meet at Stuart’s on Tuesday, August 24 at 7:45 pm. Please let both me and Stuart know if you’re planning to come.
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We will not be meeting this week, August 10.
The following week (August 17) we will meet at 7:45 pm at Stuart’s in Somerville. Please let both me and Stuart know if you’re coming.
A violent thunderstorm hit about 20 minutes before the meeting time, so we all had to battle it to get there. So we selected several pieces with thunderstorms in them.
We played:
We will meet next Tuesday at 7:45 pm at Stuart’s in Somerville. Please let both me and Stuart know if you’re coming.
LayMusic.org 