Who is the course for?

This is definitely a week for confident and experienced singers with good blending voices and some sight-reading skills. David has prepared a delicious programme of polyphonic treats - some of which are a little challenging  - so music will be sent out well in advance to allow for private study before the course starts.

"I am thrilled to be returning to atmospheric Ávila for Run by Singers - to the city where Victoria learned the craft of composition as a choir boy, and where so much other musical talent was concentrated in the sixteenth century. 

May is traditionally the month of Mary, and we will sing some of the thrillingly sensuous music Victoria composed in her honour, along with sections of his double-choir Missa Alma redemptoris mater. We will sing settings of antiphons such as Regina caeli, as well as motets that draw on the imagery from the Song of Songs and which almost qualify as sacred madrigals.

Morales was maestro de capilla at Ávila cathedral in the late 1520s; I have included two of his most beautifully-crafted Marian motets; Salva nos, stella maris includes a canon and is the perfect counterpart to Victoria’s hypnotic Trahe me.

While much of our music is appropriate to Easter season, the month of May also includes Ascension Day, so as a foil to the Marian pieces I have programmed three positively uplifting motets for the feast, two by Victoria and one by 'wildcard’ Jean Lheritier, a French composer who, like Morales and Victoria, spent much of his career working for the Catholic Church in Rome. Lots of challenges here, but so many potential artistic rewards: I cannot wait!"

David Allinson