Singing Workshop and Informal Performance

• 1pm til 3 pm Workshop – As part of our Doors Open programme

All are welcome to take part in this relaxed, informal singing workshop presented by Cappella Nova Outreach. Alan Tavener will guide you through mediaeval music associated with pilgrimage and Scottish saints, and give singing tips along the way. No musical/singing experience required, just a bring enthusiasm. Come on our singing pilgrimage with us! We promise a few laughs, plenty of vocal fun and no blisters…

You will then have the option of taking part in an informal public performance with the Schola Cantorum of St Bride later on in the afternoon at 16:00.

We are all heading one way – so why not make it a pilgrimage? Mediaeval songs of pilgrimage: from the Llibre Vermell and the Camino de Santiago de Compostela; the Cantigas de Santa Maria from the melting-pot court of Alfonso X ‘El Sabio’; the Laudesi praise bands of Florence; and the sacred sites of Scotland and Ireland.

The Schola Cantorum of St Bride Gillean McDougall (reader), Director: Rebecca Tavener, Community Choir directed by Alan Tavener (chamber organ).

Many of you will have heard this small but beautifully formed group of singing women already – ladies from our Choir (plus friends) who have been a wonderful backing-group for our mediaeval music events (St Bride’s Day, St Hildegard, St Patrick) featuring Rebecca Tavener’s professional colleagues of Canty. The Schola Cantorum of St Bride surely deserves the limelight in its own right,

If you think it’s all about lofty plainchant, think again as they will sing mediaeval songs associated with pilgrimage from Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Scotland. There will be laude from the ambulatory ‘praise band’ repertoire invented by St Francis of Assisi; walking ditties from pilgrim routes (often scurrilous songs reinvented with sacred words); songs about saints and, to crown it all, a snippet of rare chant from Ireland, written for the Feast of St Helena whose pilgrimage uncovered the relics of the True Cross. We’ll be inviting everyone to make a lot of noise for the final piece, a jolly dance number called ‘Ad mortem festinamus’, with improvised percussion and a procession around the church!