Mark your calendars:

TRS Early Music Workshop 
March 18, 2017
First Presbyterian Church, Durham

This page will be updated soon!  

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Spring Fling!

Seasonally flavored music of the British Isles

Saturday, April 2, 2016

First Presbyterian Church 
305 East Main Street 
Durham, NC 27701 (directions)

with special guest
Valerie Horst (New York City)

and regulars
Stewart Carter (Winston-Salem),
Patricia Petersen, Kathy Schenley, Doug Young
Jennifer Streeter


Thanks to everyone who attended the 2016 TRS Spring Workshop!
​Click here for photos

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**This is 2016 Workshop Information --- 2017 info will be posted soon! ** This year's workshop will follow a similar format:  

Spend a music-filled Saturday with expert teachers from near and far. Explore the delights of seasonally flavored music of the British Isles and beyond.  Come join us for some spring fun!

This workshop is intended for low-intermediate to advanced recorder players.  Voices, strings, early reeds & brass are welcome in various classes, as noted in the class description. 

$10 discount for registrations received by March 21.  

NEW ONLINE REGISTRATION! ​ Scroll down to register now!



Schedule:

• 9:00- 9:15 Registration and coffee  
• 9:15-10:30 Recorder consort/Technique   
• 10:30-11:00 Break   
• 11:00-12:15 Specialty & repertory classes 
• 12:15-1:15 Lunch 
•  1:15-2:30 Specialty & repertory classes 
•  2:30-3:00 Break 
•  3:00-4:15 Specialty & repertory classes 
•  4:25-5:00 Finale

Classes: 

9:15 AM  

• Recorder Consorts:  for all; we divide you by skill level.  Varied consort repertory.
• Renaissance Recorder Consort Heaven:  Play consort music by the divine English masters, Byrd, Brade, Holborne, and contemporaries on a matched set of renaissance recorders pitched at A=466.  For advanced players willing to learn some new fingerings.  Class size limited; be sure to make a 2nd choice.
• Does Your Technique Need a Tune-up?: Have you hit a brick wall in your practicing?  Does the mere idea of high notes send your cat scurrying and set your dog howling?  Are those pesky low notes unreliable?  Is your sound wobbly?  Would you like to learn some innovative practice techniques to conquer that elusive passagework?  Then this is the class for you!  Bring in your problem spots for lots of individual attention as well as group work.  It would be helpful if you added a brief note to your registration if there’s something in particular you’d like to focus on in this session.  All recorder players, but especially the self-taught!

11:00 AM

• If Music Be the Food of Love: Beautiful ballads, dances, and ayres from the time of Shakespeare on into the reign of William and Mary. Familiar melodies in two, three, and four parts. Low intermediate and up, recorders only.
• William Byrd’s Composers’ Rules…for survival in Protestant England though Catholic: 1. Be so brilliant that Elizabeth admires you; 2. Write brilliant Crypto Catholic motets such as “Civitas sancti tui,” whose text seems innocently Protestant while secretly expressing your anger and grief at the persecution of English Catholics. Intermediate and up, recorders, viols, voices.
• Handel’s Concerto Grosso: George picked up on Antonio Corelli and other Italians’ popular concerto grosso form and brought it to Germany and England.  Explore several of these delightful conversational pieces. High intermediate/advanced, recorders and bass viol.
• NOT Plaine and Easie!: Thomas Morley published A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke in 1597.  Much of the music in it is anything but!  We’ll tackle Morley’s “Christes Cross,” as well as Christopher Tye’s “Sit Fast” and perhaps some of John Baldwyne’s devilish delights. Some music may be available in advance.  Recorders only; MUST have solid rhythmic skills and reasonable facility on instrument. 
• Loud Band: Spring into the early Renaissance with “Im Maien, im Maien” (“In May, in May”) and other music by Senfl, Josquin, Isaac, and others. Cornetts, shawms, sackbuts, serpents, dulcians, krummhorns. 
• King Henry from Original Notation:  Learn to read Renaissance music notation from the Henry VIII manuscript. Take the plunge; it’s easier than you might think. We’ll play familiar pieces by the king himself plus rounds from Ravenscroft.  Recorders, strings, and voices. Best to be confident on your instrument; familiarity with C clefs a bonus, but not necessary.

1:15 PM

• Ravenscroft’s Reeling Rounds:  Join in these fun rounds, catches, and drinking songs from early 17th century England. Low intermediate and up, recorders only.
• April is in my mistress's recorder: Madrigals, balletts, and airs from Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Intermediate and up, recorders, viols, voices.
• O Lusty May!:  No haggis, no neeps, but 16th  and 17th c. music of Scotland.  Sacred and secular songs and dances both merry and dour.  Intermediate and up, recorders only.
• Dance Music Redux: William Brade and Anthony Holborne took the popular dance tunes of the era and composed fabulous 5-part arrangements for consort playing. Pavans and Galliards both serene and sprightly. Intermediate and up, recorders and viols.
• Nine, Nine, Nine: The Missa Albanus of Robert Fayrfax. An intriguing composition by this seldom-played early-15th-century composer, whose nine-note cantus firmus he “wresteth and turneth” repeats 30 times! Recorders only; MUST have solid rhythmic skills.

3:00 PM

• “New oysters, new; lily white mussels, new”: Richard Dering’s Cries of London grafts the coarse cries of street vendors onto an otherwise elegant 5-voice consort piece. All levels, recorders, viols, voices.
• Swing into Spring: Jazz standards and golden "oldies"-- popular tunes from the early twentieth century in the “New” England. Intermediate and up, recorders only.
• All in a Garden Green: Arrangements of English country dance tunes with spring themes, with suggestions for how to improvise your own ornaments and countermelodies for the adventurous.  Intermediate and up, recorders and strings.
• Kings, Queens, and Fairies: Put on your costumes and present your most dramatic reading in excerpts from Henry Purcell’s semi-operas such as the Fairie Queen, King Arthur, and Dioclesian. Intermediate and up, recorders, bass viol.
• No Strings Attached: Why should viol players have all the fun? Tackle the gorgeous and challenging 5 and 6 part fantasias of William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons in arrangements. High intermediate/advanced, recorders only.

4:25 PM Finale: Waterworks

The large group will play movements from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks and “Steamed Bass and Fischmaul” by Matthias Maute, from the latest issue of the American Recorder magazine.  Bring your copy of the Maute.  Parts for Handel will be provided.
Link to Maute score:  Maute


Registration and other information

•Lunch:  There is not time to go offsite; please bring your own, or order a catered lunch (sandwich assortment, side salad, cookie), for $9.  Beverages will be provided.  Lunch orders must be placed by March 28.  

•Fees:  

• Full-day workshop – TRS members: $90; non-members: $100  
• Half day – TRS members: $45; non-members: $50
• $10 discount on full-time enrollment for applications received by March 21  
• Fees refundable until March 30  
• For financial aid or student work-study rates, call Pat at (919) 683-9672 or e-mail     <[email protected]>.

•Marketplace/Flea Market:  Bring instruments and music that you would like to sell.  Faculty CD's may be available.
•Accommodations:  We will put you in touch with locals offering hospitality as available or send info on local motel accommodations.
•Information:  Jennifer Streeter, (919) 802-5586, [email protected] or Pat Petersen, (919) 683-9672, [email protected]
•Emergency phone on day of workshop only:  (919) 614-1272 (Kathy Schenley’s cell), (919) 536-8922 (Pat’s cell), (919) 802-5586 (Jennifer’s cell)
•Registration:  Please fill out the registration form below! 

Apply early as this workshop often fills up, and PLEASE give 2nd choices!!!

Class offerings & faculty are subject to change, depending on enrollment & class choices.

$10 discount for registrations received by March 21!!

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TRS Thanks YOU!

The 2015 Spring TRS Workshop was held on Saturday, 
March 28.  THANK YOU to all who organized, attended 
and taught.  It was a great workshop!

Photos are on our Facebook page.  Click here. 

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