Renaissance Italian canzonas
Tutor: Alison Kinder
St Matthew’s Community Hall, Chapel Lane, Stretford, Manchester M32 9AJ
We were delighted to welcome back Ali Kinder to Manchester for an instrumental workshop at St Matthew’s in Stretford where 22 joined us for a day of Italian canzonas. St Matthew’s Community Hall is a great venue, and is used regularly by Manchester SRP. We were fortunate to have a continuo team for the day with curtal, spinet and violone, as well as a couple of ‘wardrobes’ (as Ali affectionately called the contrabasses). Thanks to everyone who came along, and to Ali for her exuberance, passion and skill – a full review of the workshop will follow shortly.
More information about the day
The instrumental canzona was a hugely popular form in Renaissance Italy. Hundreds of canzonas survive, in varied styles and even more varied numbers of parts. In this workshop we will look at pieces in 6 parts, 8-parts in two choirs, 12-parts in three choirs, and somewhat unusually, 13 parts.
The pieces covered in this workshop will be:
Giovanni Priuli (ca.1575-1626) Canzone Quarta à 6
Giovanni Gabrieli (1554-1612) Canzon XV1 à 12 (3 Choirs)
Agostino Soderino (fl. 1598-1608) ‘L’Angelina’ à 8 and/or Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (1560-1627) ‘La Piacentina’ à 8
Pietro Lappi (1575-1630) ‘La Monteverde’ à 13
The Tutor
Alison Kinder is a founder member of Chelys consort of viols where she enjoys researching, performing and recording programmes covering all aspects of consort music. She also has a particular interest in ‘Renaissance’ viols (early viols made with no soundpost) with The Linarol Consort, who play on copies of the earliest surviving viol made by Francesco Linarol. One of her favourite places to be is as the gamba player with Musica Secreta, an all-female polyphonic ensemble specialising in the research and performance of music by and for early modern women.
Alison read music at Oxford University before being given a scholarship by Trinity College of Music where she studied viol with Alison Crum. She was awarded the college’s Silver Medal for Early Music Studies.
A keen teacher of both children and adults, Alison is a tutor on a number of Early Music courses including the Easter Early Music Course, the Renaissance Music Week in Denmark, Cambridge Early Music Summer School, Norvis and HISS. She also regularly leads workshops for the various Early Music Fora. Alison is co-director of Rondo Viol Academy, which runs weekend courses for players of all standards from Elementary to Advanced.
