Come and discover Medieval music with Mary Mohan and Jude Rees.
Delve into the world of Medieval manuscripts, dance tunes, beautiful sacred music and more. This course takes a “no rules” approach, allowing musicians from every discipline to explore this diverse and surprising genre. Want to play a cantiga on violin, clarinet and bass concertina? No problem! Or have a collection of unusual historic instruments you want to dust off and use? Bring them along!
With a mix of whole course sessions, smaller ensemble groups and specialist workshops, Mary and Jude work together to educate and inspire, providing a fun and safe environment for you to learn and enjoy yourself.
Workshops might include such delights as:
• Have-a-go bagpipes (courtesy of The Bagpipe Society)
• Medieval choral singing
• Including percussion in your arrangements
• How to Estampie-ize
This is a chance to build on existing skills, practise your technique, and learn a lot of new repertoire. Most of the course concentrates on guided learning as a whole group or small groups, with some opportunity for self-led work in small groups too.
Who is it for?
We welcome all instruments and can provide music in a variety of clefs and transpositions. Much of the repertoire is accessible to novice players but the more comfortable you are with your instrument(s), the more you are likely to enjoy the course. If you’ve done this course before, the repertoire will be completely new, so it’s worth taking again if you enjoyed the last time.
Reading notation is helpful but not essential, and the tutors offer a ‘learn by ear’ session. If you’d like to get better at learning by ear in advance, you could try our Learning by Ear course in June.
Some of the music will be sent out in advance if you like the opportunity to look over it before arriving, and more repertoire will be provided during the course.
The Team
Mary Mohan is a lower strings specialist based in the Midlands. She plays cello, Baroque cello, viola da gamba, Renaissance viol and Medieval strings, as well as upright bass. In addition she also plays historic recorders, crumhorns, Medieval bagpipes, voice and a variety of percussion as needed. Mary studied cello under Chris Hoyle and viola da gamba under Jacqui Robertson-Wade. She directs Archaedium, a group that specialises in Medieval music, and plays with Piva Renaissance Collective.
Jude Rees is a professional oboist and woodwind specialist with extensive experience in classical, folk, contemporary and early music. As a freelance multi-instrumentalist and sought-after session musician, Jude has worked with some of the luminaries of the British folk scene and has guested on numerous albums and live tours. She currently plays and sings regularly with BBC Radio2 Folk Award nominated Pilgrims’ Way and with Piva the Renaissance Collective. Jude has a love of early music and historical instruments, but is equally at home working with composers and sound designers in a contemporary setting. She has played for theatre, television and radio including the BBC and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Jude co-runs a lively early music group for children in Warwickshire and also enjoys composing and arranging.