Viols West Workshop 2008
Rosamund Morley, Music Director
Alice Brin Renken, Administrative Director
August 10-16, 2008
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA

The Workshop
We offer five full days of varied classes for players at different levels. Most students take three daily classes; in addition, there is usually an optional session of a mixed activity in the late afternoon. Teachers will give an informal concert, and will also help students form evening consorts, and there is a student concert to end the week. Please note that enrollment is limited to 60.

The Setting
We return to the campus of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. "SLO-town" nestles six miles inland in a broad valley half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Surrounded by gently rolling hills dotted with native oaks, its Mediterranean-like climate complements a charming downtown with a restored Mission. Both a small airport (with connecting commuter flights) and Amtrak serve the city. Our shortened Thursday schedule (no dinner served on campus) allows you to take advantage of SLO's popular market night where there are plenty of choices for your dinner, spread your towel by the ocean, visit giant Morro rock, or compare the wares of local wineries.

Housing
We'll have a dormitory all to ourselves. Classes will be held in its rooms and lounges. There are no elevators, but your viols will be safe on the first floor. Please note that the facilities available to us are NOT fully ADA-compliant, but we do try to make it as easy on you as possible. Meals in the dining commons are a gamba-stretching stroll away. Walking trails are everywhere.

Enrollment & Fees
Tuition this year is $480.00. A $100 workshop deposit, plus fees for Rec Center passes ($35), ethernet in your room ($15), and refrigerator rental ($22), along with a reservation for a parking permit if you think you might need one, MUST BE RECEIVED BY JULY 15. Room and Board is $400.00 for single rooms, $340.00 per person for doubles. The full balance (plus the parking permit fee ($15 per car per week) is due at check-in on Sunday, August 10, 2:30-4:30 PM. There may be wireless access in the public areas, but you will have to have CalPoly's approved software installed in order to use it.

IT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE FOR ANYONE TO STAY OVERNIGHT ON SATURDAY, AUGUST 16. PLEASE PLAN ACCORDINGLY.

Questions
Classes: Ros Morley 718 852-1247; rhm13@columbia.edu
Everything else: Alice Renken 760-729-6679; arenken@sandwich.net.

Extras: Boulder Early Music Shop and PRB will be with us again this year. Linda Shortridge will be available to install Pegheds, and Dominik Zuchowicz will be on hand for those emergency repairs.

Fremont Hall is one of 6 red brick dorms on your right after you enter the campus on Grand Ave. Turn right on Deer Road. Look for VW SIGNS to direct you to lot R1, behind those dorms. Registration will start at 3 PM on Sunday, Aug. 10. If you get to the campus early, have a look around. If you're arriving late, PLEASE INFORM US.

For Airport or Amtrak pickup, be sure to let Alice know by mail or e-mail when and where you will be arriving. We need to know flight numbers and times of both arrival and departure. You will be picked up at the airport or the train station. For last minute changes, contact Alice on her cell phone: 760 419-9152. Voice mail is undependable, so do keep trying.

We tune at A=415
Don't forget your marked music stand, strings, tuners, rosin, pencils, etc. You can make copies in the Student Union weekdays only, or in town. Light is adequate but not brilliant; lamps and extension cords are always appreciated. Linens, blankets, towels, and many teensy soaps are provided. Everything else is up to you— hangers? fan? a mug for the morning coffee break?

Weather
Anything is possible. Bring a jacket or sweater for foggy mornings. Dress is casual.

Alcohol Policy
Cal Poly is a DRY campus. DO NOT go outside the dorm with "adult beverages" and DO NOT discard any such bottles in campus dumpsters or leave them behind in your room. If you bring it in, you MUST take it out with you and discard or recycle OFF CAMPUS.

Phones
Each room has a phone (free local calls, use credit card for long distance). There are pay phones in the lobby. Additional campus numbers: 7AM-9PM: 805 756-5680, and absolute emergency ONLY: 805 756-2281.

Martha Bishop, Atlanta, GA
Martha Bishop performs with Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and New Trinity Baroque, and is the Music Director of the VdGSA Conclave. Her didactic publications for gamba are used internationally, and her compositions are available through PRB Publications. Besides music, Martha’s favorite things are biking, hiking and needlework.

Tina Chancey, Arlington, VA
Tina Chancey is director of Hesperus, and early/traditional music ensemble that brings the past alive through collaborations between early music an film, theater, dance and world music. She recently started studying jazz improv (on the viol) in order to better understand its practice in renaissance Europe. Her new solo CD is "The Versatile Viol: Scottish and Irish Music."

John Dornenburg, Oakland, CA
John Dornenburg teaches at Stanford University and CSU Sacramento. He holds a Soloist's Diploma from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, studying with Wieland Kuijken, and also studied with Nikolas Harnoncourt at Salzburg Mozarteum. He is a member of Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, Magnificat, Music's Re-creation, Philharmonia, American Bach Soloists, and has recorded for Centaur, Meridian, Koch, and Dorian.

Wendy Gillespie, Bloomington, IN
Wendy Gillespie has performed all over the world with ensembles ranging from the English Concert to Ensemble Sequentia and has participated in more than 70 recordings; sharing a Gramophone award, a French Grand Prix du Disque, and an Edison Award with various colleagues. As a member of the viol consorts Fretwork, Phantasm, and Les Filles du Sainte-Colombe, Gillespie feels fortunate to be able to pursue her interest in the viola da gamba and its literature in depth. She serves as Department Chair of Early Music at Indiana University, where she has been on the faculty for more than 20 years.

Julie Jeffrey, Richmond, CA
Julie Jeffrey is a member of Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, whose concerts and recordings have received critical acclaim; of Wildcat Viols, which she founded in 2003; and is half of Hallifax & Jeffrey, a viol duo specializing in French Baroque music. Ms. Jeffrey freelances with many California ensembles and has played with Chicago's Newberry Consort, Cincinnati's Catacoustic Consort, Toronto's Scaramella, Oregon's Terra Nova Consort, and at the Regensburg Tage Alter Musik, the Melbourne Autumn Music Festival, and the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Larry Lipnik, Long Island City, NY
Larry Lipnik has performed with many early music ensembles including the Waverly Consort, Anonymous 4, the New York Consort of Viols, Lionheart, and Parthenia. He has taught at the Benslow Music Trust (UK), Mount Gravatt College in Australia, Amherst Early Music, Wesleyan University, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He has recorded for numerous labels including EMI, Angel, Nimbus, Virgin, Sony, Koch International, and has served as music consultant for the Bill Cosby Show, video artist William Wegman and Sesame Street.

Sarah Mead, Natick, MA
Sarah Mead, who lives and works in the Boston area, is the 2007 winner of Early Music America's Binkley Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Collegium Director. She is Associate Professor at Brandeis, where she directs the Early Music Ensemble and is a frequent guest choral conductor. She is the author of the Renaissance Theory chapter in A Performer's Guide to the Renaissance, recently re-issued by Indiana University Press. She has taught at Tufts and Northeastern as well as at Trinity College of Music in London and is a regular guest lecturer at Longy School of Music in Cambridge. She is Program Director for Early Music Week at Pinewoods.

Robert Mealy, New York, NY
Robert Mealy is one of America's leading historical string players; he is concertmaster and soloist with many orchestras, including the Boston Early Music Festival, and he is a member of the medieval ensemble Fortune's Wheel, the Renaissance violin band The King's Noyse, and the new 17c ensemble Quicksilver. He was recently appointed Professor of Baroque Violin at Yale University, where he directs the Yale Collegium and teaches classes in musical rhetoric and performance practice.
 
Rosamund Morley, Brooklyn, NY
Rosamund Morley has performed on all the viols and their medieval ancestors with ensembles as diverse as Piffaro, Lionheart, ARTEK, The Boston Camerata, Sequentia and Les Arts Florissants; she has toured worldwide with the Waverly Consort. She is a longtime member of Parthenia where she loves to play both early and new music. Her teaching schedule has included workshops such as Charney Manor in the UK, the Cammac Music Center in Quebec, Summerkeys in Maine, and the Viola da Gamba Society's annual Conclave. She teaches viol at Columbia University.

David Morris, Oakland, CA
David Morris has performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles on both coasts. He is a member of Musica Pacifica, The King's Noyse and the Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, and has produced operas for the Teatro Bacchino, the Berkeley Early Music Festival and the San Francisco Early Music Society series. He has been a guest instructor in early music performance-practice at UC Berkeley, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Mills College and The Crowden School.

Brent Wissick, Chapel Hill, NC
Brent Wissick is Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a member of Ensemble Chanterelle and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, frequent guest with many ensembles. A student of John Hsu, he was NEH Fellow at Harvard, taught at the Aston Magna Academy at Yale, chair of Higher Education for Early Music America. He has recorded for Centaur, Albany, and Koch International. He is currently Past President of the Viola Gamba Society of America, having served as President from 2000-2004 and a board member since 1986.

VIOLS WEST 2008 CLASSES



FIRST MORNING CLASS

A morning "homeroom" technique and repertoire class. Participants will be grouped according to experience and size of viol.

SECOND MORNING CLASS

Rhythm Method: exercises and consorts to strengthen your rhythmic sense, clean up your dots and sub-divide and conquer. (all levels, Mead)

What Mary Heard: French and Scottish music from the time of Mary Queen of Scots. (LI-MI, some doubling, Morley)

Spain and the New World: music by Hidalgo, Herrara, Arraujo and more. (MI, some doubling, Wissick)

Tenor on Top: luxurious music on low instruments, no trebles allowed. (MI-UI, Jeffrey)

The Stuarts: From James I to Queen Anne, the Stuart dynasty reigned during times of exciting musical, social and political activity (1603-1714).  Music associated with each monarch’s period, from consorts to birthday odes and funeral marches. (MI-UI, Morris)

“You’re the Top”: technique and repertoire of the treble viol, including Purcell fantasies, masque dances, anonymous Jacobean divisions and more. (MI-UI, Chancey)

The Leading Man Consort: A consort repertory class, led from the treble by the teacher. (UI, Dornenburg)

Looking backwards: the intimate beauty of 15th century music by Dufay, Josquin and their contemporaries. (UI-A, Mealy)

Jenkins: Playing the master's music from his own manuscripts. (A, Bishop)

Lawes Rules!: understanding what made Lawes a very fine composer. (A, Gillespie)

FIRST AFTERNOON CLASS

Exploring the Recercadas of Ortiz: a multi-level class combining ear training, playing of madrigals, learning a solo and possibly even composing over one of Ortiz’ grounds. something for everyone. (all levels, Bishop)

English consort songs to sing with your bow. (LI-UI, Wissick)

Spain and the Sephardic Jews: tracing the musical legacy of the Sephardic Jews in Europe and North Africa after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. (MI, Chancey)

 “How cool (hot) is that?” English and Italian madrigals, apt for viols, from 1550-1588 (MI-UI, Morris)

The Byrd 4-part Mass: sublime music with easy notes but challenging rhythms. both facsimile and modern editions will be available. (MI-UI,  some doubling possible, Gillespie)

The Renaissance Dance Band: what viols can learn from the violin for playing the dance music of Holborne, Brade, Scheidt, Schein and more. (MI-UI, Mealy)

Three by Six: comparing trios and sextets in the music of Gibbons and lupo. (UI, Jeffrey)

Aquaintance: meeting the 6 part fantasies and allemandes of Martin Peerson, starting with the one actually called “Aquaintance". (UI-A, Mead)

The Allegorists: musical soul searching and spiritual journeys by East and Dowland.  Examining the 8 fantasies from East’s “Third Set of Books” and Dowland’s “Lachrimae”. one treble player must also play tenor. (A, Lipnik)

More Marais: Working through the challenges of solos for the bass. (A, Dornenburg)

SECOND AFTERNOON CLASS

VOICES & VIOLS. German Polyphony from Senfl to Buxtehude. (everyone welcome, Lipnik)