Bach’s B minor Mass
2023-09-17 10:30 - 17:00 (Europe/London)
Live workshop directed by John Hancorn on choruses from Bach’s B minor Mass, for singers and orchestra (ie appropriate instruments!)

Pitch A=440.

Headcorn, Kent

12 September: still room for a few more sopranos

Online booking form (preferred)

Further details and paper booking form (PDF)

What about Weelkes?
2023-10-28 10:30 - 17:00
Live workshop for singers on the music of Weelkes, led by Will Dawes and Katie Banks.

Weelkes died on 30th November 1623.

Bosham, near Chichester

On-line booking form (preferred)

Download paper booking form and further details

Workshop directed by David Allinson
2023-11-18 10:30 - 17:00
Regina Caeli: Polychoral Motets for Mary

David Allinson will direct a live workshop of larger-scale works for voices and instruments.

Scaynes Hill (near Haywards Heath)

This workshop is now full. At this time of year there could be some late cancellations, so we are maintaining a waiting list.

If you would like to come, please book online via this link but DON’T pay at this stage. We will let you know if a place becomes available – inevitably, this may be at short notice.

Online booking form (preferred)

Download further details and the postal booking form (pdf)

Online talk by David Allison
2024-01-25 19:30 - 21:00
‘Regina Caeli, Regina Mundi’: musical veneration of the Virgin Mary in the Spanish Golden Age.

The talk will be recorded for those not able to hear it on the night.

Flyer with further details (including a link to the online booking form)

Online booking form You can pay by bank transfer (preferred) or by cheque

Instrumental workshop directed by Oliver Webber
2024-02-10 10:30 - 17:00 | Headcorn Village Hall, Church Lane, Headcorn, TN27 9NR
The workshop will include dances by Lorenzo Allegri written for entertainments at the Florentine court (c. 1612); a 16-part canzona by Tiburtio Massaino; Jubilate Deo in 16 parts by Lambert de Sayve, and Giovanni Gabrieli’s Canzona in echo a 12.

Open to the following instruments: Cornetts, sackbuts, curtals/dulcians, recorders, viol and violin family, plucked continuo. Violin family players do not need to have a baroque instrument.

Pitch is A=440.

This workshop is now full.No further bookings will be accepted.

Online booking form (preferred)

Further details and paper booking form (pdf)

Gaudeamus: a workshop for singers and players directed by Peter Syrus
2024-04-20 10:30 - 17:00 | Scaynes Hill Village Centre, Lewes Road, Scaynes Hill, West Sussex, RH17 7PG, United Kingdom
Peter Syrus will direct his new programme of borrowings in Spanish church music of the Golden Age.

Bookings for recorder players are now full.

Singers: more tenors needed.

Online booking form (preferred)

Paper booking form and further details

Workshop for voices and instruments directed by Alison Kinder
2024-06-08 10:30 - 17:00
Clapham and Patching Village Hall201 Long FurlongWorthing, BN13 3UT

Reusing old material is not a new concept; Renaissance composers did it all the time, sometimes with their own material and sometimes with someone else’s. This workshop will look at three examples, in each case a kind of ‘upcycling’ from a short initial motet or chanson into an entire mass.

We will begin with the beautiful 4-part chanson by Josquin, Mille Regretz – this was later recycled by Cristobal de Morales as the basis for a 6-voice mass setting (we will look at the Kyrie and the Gloria). Our second example is Ego Flos Campi, a lovely 7-part motet by Clemens non Papa, who spent most of his life in Flanders. His friend Jacobus Vaet, who wrote an elegy on Clemens’ death, borrowed this motet as the basis for a 6-part mass, with an 8-part Agnus. We’ll look at the original, and then the transformation into Vaet’s Agnus Dei. Our third example is of a composer reworking his own material: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s 6-voice motet Tu Es Petrus is then gloriously expanded into a mass, not once, but twice! The first Missa Tu Es Petrus is also for 6 voices, but then he gets a bit carried away and does a setting for 18 voices in three choirs, still based on the same material! We’ll do the motet plus a movement from one of the masses.

Booking for this event has now officially closed. However, if you’re a tenor or bass singer we might still be able to squeeze you in – so if would like to come, please click on the link to the online booking form (see below) and follow the instructions.

There are now waiting lists for instruments and for all other voices.

On-line booking form (preferred)

Further details and paper booking form (PDF file)

NEMA : Singing the Baroque, and beyond
2024-07-20 10:00 - 17:00 | St Paul’s Church, Canterbury, Church Street, Canterbury, CT1 1NH
A one-day conference hosted by the National Early Music Association

St Paul’s Church, Church Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1NH

Invitation and Call for Contributors

Speakers (historians, musicologists, practitioners) are invited to submit proposals for papers, round tables or workshops on the topics such as vocal style, performance practice and institutions.See https://singing-the-baroque.webnode.co.uk/ for details of this symposium, and contact details.

The keynote will be given by an eminent musicologist/practitioner (tbc).

Convenors: Dr David Allinson (Canterbury) & Dr Francis Knights (Cambridge)

Expressions of interest from speakers, abstract submissions for papers lasting 20 minutes, or suggestions for round-table themes, should be emailed to both Dr David Allinson davidallinson.choral(at)gmail.com and Dr Francis Knights fk240(at)cam.ac.uk by 1 May 2024 for consideration by the conference committee.

Vivaldi and contemporaries
2024-09-29 10:30 - 17:00 | Headcorn Village Hall, Church Lane, Headcorn, TN27 9NR
A workshop for voices and orchestra, directed by John Hancorn.

The workshop will look at the Magnificat by Durante [previously attributed to Pergolesi], and choral works by Vivaldi. This event is for singers of all voices, along with strings, oboes, bassoon and trumpet.

*** Wind places are now full. ***If you would like to be put on the waiting list, email the organiser at the address on the flier (below).

To book, please use the online booking form if possible.Download further details and a paper booking form in the flier for the event (PDF file).

Bach Cantatas BWV 80 and 106 in Folkestone
2024-10-12 11:00 - 16:00 | St George’s Church, Folkestone, Audley Road,, Folkestone, CT20 3QA
St George’s Church, Folkestone

Conductor: Duncan Lord Accompanist: Kevin Bull

An opportunity to work on a couple of the church cantatas of J.S.Bach, “Ein Feste Burg” and “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit”. We will sing them in English. Music will be provided.

Further information and booking details.

This event is not organised by Southern Early Music Forum.

The life and music of Thomas Morley
2024-10-19 10:30 - 17:00
A workshop for singers with Will Dawes and Katie Bank

Findon Village Hall, near Worthing, West Sussex

To book, please use the online booking form if possible.Download further details and a paper booking form in the flier for the event (PDF file).

Double-choir Lassus Workshop
2024-11-09 10:30 - 17:15 | Bosham Village Hall, PO18 8QF, United Kingdom
Directed by Patrick Craig

For voices and instruments Saturday 9th November 2024

10.30 am – 5.15 pm Bosham Village Hall (nr. Chichester) PO18 8QF

This workshop is now full. Cancellations are always possible, so if you would like to join the waiting list please complete this Online booking form but do not pay at this stage.

See this PDF flyer for Further details. We regret we are no longer able to accept postal applications.

Palestrina 500 and the glories of Rome
2025-02-13 19:30 - 20:30
A Zoom talk by Patrick Craig

13 February 2025, 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Online booking form

Further details

Renaissance workshop for voices and instruments
2025-02-23 10:30 - 17:00 | Headcorn Village Hall, Church Lane, Headcorn, TN27 9NR
Directed by Peter Wendland.

A background note by Peter Wendland about the music is available at this link.

Online booking form (preferred)

Further details and paper booking form (PDF)

Further details and paper booking form (Word)

Palestrina, Prince of Music - workshop for voices
2025-03-29 10:30 - 17:00 | Bosham, United Kingdom
Directed by David Allinson

Bosham, near Chichester

Online booking form (preferred)

Further information and paper booking form.

Purcell for singers, strings, and continuo
2025-05-17 10:30 - 17:00 | Blackbridge Community Centre, Three Acres, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 1RS, United Kingdom
Ben England (of “Choir of the Earth” and “Homechoir” fame) will direct music by Purcell for singers, strings, and continuo at baroque pitch (A=415).

Online booking form (preferred)

Further details and postal booking form (PDF)

Gibbons Verse Anthems for voices and instruments
2025-06-28 10:30 - 17:00 | Findon Village Hall, High Street, Findon, West Sussex, BN14 0TA, United Kingdom
Directed by Bill Hunt

Bill writes: In 2023 I had the pleasure of leading a workshop featuring verse anthems by William Byrd, the father of this musical form. This year we shall feature anthems by Orlando Gibbons to celebrate his quatercentenary (died 1625), in whose hands it arguably reached its finest expression.

The vocal scoring of sacred music from this period is not easy to replicate with modern voices – it is very clear that the voice ranges for which it was typically written are significantly different from the normal SATB ranges that we know today. To give you an idea, ‘Cantus’ or ‘mean’ usually denotes what we would now call ‘mezzo’: ‘Contratenor’ means a high tenor range (not a falsetto ‘countertenor’) and is sometimes best achieved by combining a normal tenor with an alto in a kind of pantomime horse arrangement. ‘Tenor’ was the name given to what we would recognise as baritone; and Bassus means a ‘real’, i.e. low bass voice.

Instruments: Viols of all sizes and soft wind (recorders, flutes) with a supporting role for well-behaved curtals in the chorus sections. Organ and lute are also welcome to join.

Places for Sopranos and for Recorder players are now full. Applicants will be put on a waiting list for possible vacancies.

Online booking form (preferred)

Further details and postal booking form (PDF)

Workshop for instruments directed by Emily White (Headcorn)
2025-10-05 10:30 - 17:00 | Headcorn Village Hall, Church Lane, Headcorn, TN27 9NR
We will cover a wide range of music, from France, Scotland, Germany and Italy and ranging from 5 to 22 parts: Jean Mouton – Reges terrae congregati sunt; Robert Carver – O bone Jesu; Melchior Vulpius – Verbum caro factus est; Giovanni Gabrieli – Sonata XX in 22 parts.

Open to the following instruments: Cornetts, sackbuts, curtals/dulcians, recorders, viol and violin family, plucked continuo.

Online booking form (preferred)

Further details and paper booking form

Annual General Meeting 2025 (Zoom)
2025-11-09 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Followed by a conversation with our Vice-President David Allinson

Palestrina workshop for voices directed by David Allinson (Challock)
2025-11-15 10:30 - 17:00 | Challock Memorial Hall, Blind Lane, Challock, TN25 4AU, United Kingdom
Directed by David Allinson

David Allinson writes: This year the early music world has been celebrating the 500th anniversary of Palestrina’s birth. An astonishingly productive composer, he wrote over a hundred settings of the Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, etc.), many of which remain unheard and unrecorded today.

For this workshop, we will explore Palestrina’s supreme mastery in the so-called ‘parody’ Mass genre. In this type of setting, the composer bases their Mass on a pre-existing polyphonic model — generally a motet or chanson – expanding and rhapsodising on the source material in each ‘movement’.This should be a harmonious, varied and enjoyable day of singing that sheds light on some of Palestrina’s loveliest Mass settings.

While final repertoire choices depend on the forces signing up, it is hoped to include a movement from some or all of these Masses: O sacrum convivium, Sicut lilium, O magnum mysterium and Je suis deshéritée – along with the polyphonic source motet or chanson. Divided voice parts are frequently required (especially tenors) so strong singers are encouraged to sign up early so that the desired Masses can be included.

More basses needed!

Altos will be put on a waiting list (unless accompaied by at least one bass).

Online booking form (preferred)

Further details and postal booking form.

Workshop for voices and instruments directed by Alison Kinder (Boxgrove)
2025-11-15 10:30 - 17:00 | Boxgrove Village Hall, The Street, Boxgrove, PO18 0EE, United Kingdom
A European Advent

Alison Kinder will take us on a musical tour of western Europe. Come and explore some glorious – but less familiar – music appropriate to the approaching Advent season.

Subject to the forces available (especially tenors!), the music will include: Ecce Dominus Veniet a8 (Praetorius); O Lieber Herre Gott a7 (Schutz), Spiritus Sanctus a7 (Merulo); Ad te Levavi (Palestrina); Veni Domine (Morales); Laetentur Coeli (Byrd); and Gibbons’ 6 part setting of Lift up your heads.

Applications are welcome from singers (all voices) and players of instruments appropriate to the period (strings – viol and violin families; loud and soft wind; and continuo instruments).

Online booking form (preferred).

Further details and postal booking form.

Orlando Gibbons and the Music of Westminster Abbey (Zoom)
2026-01-27 19:30 - 20:30 | Zoom
A Zoom talk by Patrick Craig

Orlando Gibbons was one of the most brilliant and imaginative composers this country has ever produced. He is beloved by jazz musicians such as Glenn Gould for his inventive and unpredictable genius. In this lecture Patrick traces his career at Westminster Abbey, looking at his predecessors who shaped his education, and looking ahead to some of the great musicians who followed him there including Pelham Humfrey, Henry Purcell and his own son Christopher Gibbons.

Online booking form

Flier with further information

Workshop for voices and Renaissance instruments directed by Gawain Glenton
2026-02-08 10:30 - 17:30 | Headcorn Village Hall, Church Lane, Headcorn, TN27 9NR
The workshop will focus on the music of Giovanni Croce (1557-1609), who was a leading Venetian composer of his day. His sacred music shows a development from the even-textured style of Palestrina to the more modern Venetian style, using multiple choruses, solo voices, crisp instrumental rhythms, and basso continuo.We intend to include his 10-part Dialogo de Chori d’Angeli and movements of his 16-part Missa Jubilate Deo.

Open to all voices and the following instruments:Cornetts, sackbuts, curtals/dulcians, recorders, viol and violin family, plucked continuo. Violin family players do not need to have a baroque instrument.

Pitch A440.

Online booking form (preferred).

Further details and paper booking form
