by Bryan Au Yeung, Student Representative
Besides a family trip to Ōsaka, Japan I had longed for at least three years, I had a blast making music and learning with different people in the South during the summer holidays. I am very grateful to have received financial support from the Forum’s Joan Wess Educational Fund, which has contributed towards tuition and travel aspects for two incredible early music learning engagements which I would share in detail below. I am incredibly lucky to have NWEMF being a significant part of my time at the RNCM, and the unwavering support from fellow Committee Members for my early music ventures and engagements.
Stile Antico 2026 Youth Consort Program
29 – 31 August 2026
Venue: St Gabriel’s, Pimlico (London)
Tutors: Helen Ashby, Kate Ashby, Rebecca Hickey, Cara Curran, Gareth Thomas, James Arthur, Nathan Harrison, Eleanor Harries (members and ex-members of Stile Antico), Will Dawes (Somerville College, Oxford), Tom Castle (Tallis Scholars)
This is my second time participating in the annual Stile Antico August Bank Holiday Weekend Tradition. I first joined this program last year (2025) under Amber Moeller’s recommendation and absolutely loved it. The 2026 Youth Consort Program was evidently very contrasting from the previous year in terms of programming. Echoing the Ensemble’s Polyphonic Postcards program of the 2026 Season, the teaching concept went way deeper than providing a formal introduction to early music.
The singers whom I met in this course came from all walks of life and very different music experiences: some are due to matriculate at Oxbridge as stellar organ/choral scholars, some recently finished their GCSEs and wanted to try a new genre of music ahead of Sixth Form, some even travelled from Europe to attend the course being diehard fans of Stile Antico.
Throughout the three days we had sessions covering the following:
Singing Early Music in a Large Choral Group
Repertoire covered
Moulu, Pierre: Mater florebat
Tallis, Thomas: Loquebantur variis linguis
Lobo, Alonso: O quam suavis est
Monteverdi, Claudio: Adoramus te, Christe
Senfl, Ludwig: Das Gelaut zu Speyer
Cardoso, Manuel: Vau – Et egressus est (excerpt from Lamentations)
Guerrero, Francisco: Surge propera a 6
L’Heritier, Jean – Surrexit pastor bonus
Lusitano, Vicente – Regina caeli
Daser, Ludwig – Fratres sobrii estote
Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da – Ecce nunc benedicite a 12
These sessions were more or less the same as an EMF workshop where we explore pieces in depth before a sing/play-through. The Pierre Moulu piece was the most interesting where different voice parts are singing names of different composers; I trust most of us would agree Josquin is simply incomparable, as Moulu described!
The compline psalm Ecce nunc benedicte by Palestrina for triple choir was the most anticipated by many, it is one of the few pieces that are intentionally unconducted, and that singers must sort things out among ourselves. It was great to see all participants chipping in on tackling antiphonal textures between choirs, sustaining the intensity and quality of breaths. I was very impressed by the collective ensemble awareness, which made it even more enjoyable as more space were unlocked to experiment elements like phrasing, tempo and articulation.
Learning Mensural Notation
Repertoire covered
Soriano, Francesco: Missa Nos autem gloriari oportet (Kyrie, Agnus Dei)
Marenzio, Luca: O rex gloriae
Marenzio, Luca: O sacrum convivium
Members of Stile Antico did a music theory session teaching the basics of mensural notation and prolations, as well as recognising their patterns of occurrence and presentation through the two motets within Marenzio’s Mottetorum pro festis totius anni. They also attempted to give a taster what it would have been like for church singers of the Renaissance period to sing from part books by blowing up the Soriano facsimile into A2 size and taped it on a large (orchestral) conductor’s stand. It was a struggle for most people (I was in the minority and rather cheated my way round as I have programmed the same mass setting for Holy Week earlier this year at the Holy Name in Oxford Road, Manchester) but nonetheless an exciting experience for all.
Singing Early Music in One-to-a-part Small Consorts
The cohort is broken into several small consort groups based on choral singing experience and sight-reading skills. On each day, each consort group will be coached by a different member of Stile Antico.
Examples of repertoire covered
Monteverdi, Claudio: Ecco mormorar l’onde
Cardoso, Manuel: Turbe quae praecedebant
Lobo, Alonso: Missa Simile est regnum caelorum (Agnus Dei)
Guerrero, Francisco: Missa Congratulamini mihi (Agnus Dei)
Victoria, Tomás Luis de: O magnum mysterium
Victoria, Tomás Luis de: Amicus meus – Infelix praetermisit praetium (excerpt from Tenebrae Responsories)
I was allocated to a SSATB group of talented and versatile singers, having the most challenging set of music, which was the Monteverdi madrigal Ecco mormorar l’onde and the Cardoso Palm Sunday motet Turbe quae praecedebant. The Italian It was an immense pleasure for our group to be coached by Tom Castle from the Tallis Scholars who maintains very close ties with Stile Antico as a regular deputy. He was very encouraging and helped me to hone my qualities and strengths of my voices as a baritone through his casual Come and Sing during breaktime tackling William Byrd’s Ad Dominum cum tribularer. Moving forward, it would only get easier for me to sing a Quintus/Sextus lower tenor parts. Fingers crossed!
Overall, reprising this course was certainly encouraging. Almost all scores we sang from were produced by two in-house editors of Stile Antico, Andrew Griffiths and Gareth Thomas. Singing from them was convenient and requires little effort, helping me understand my personal editorial practices align with professional expectations. Most importantly, knowing I am not alone and there are many young people out there wanting to discover this wonder craft that we all practice.
My reflection from this years’ experience on the course was: “You can take away early music from the church, but you can’t take away the church from early music”. Early music has contributed to church life over the course of history and it is still making an impact on congregants across churches through musical offering of cathedral and parish choirs. There is always a personal feeling that the religious context of early music is rather over-generalised, and avenues of its liturgical application are blurred. The text from the Songs of Songs was a recurring theme during this year’s program and I had a nice chat with Will Dawes (who frequents EMFs in the South) about connections between the Songs of Songs and church feasts of saints who were traditionally venerated as virgins and nuns. This is something I hope to bring back to my routine work with the Ignatius Singers at the Holy Name, continuing to develop the liturgical awareness of church seasons and time within programming, aiming for an authentic application of pieces through the correct use of Propers.
Enrolment for 2027 Program will open very soon and spaces for sopranos are always taken very quickly! Tuition rates very friendly and bursaries available.
Cambridge Choral Liturgy Course 2026
4 – 6 September 2026
Tutor: David Allinson
Venue: St Catharine’s College, Cambridge
This was a very humbling experience where I got to meet singers of a much older age group which ensemble skills, sight-singing and standard of singing technique vary to a rather large degree. Led by David Allinson (who led our March 2026 Workshop on Music for Holy Week by Tomás Luis de Victoria), the weekend course covered rehearsing challenging unfamiliar music for a Sunday Anglican Eucharist service in an intense timeframe:
Byrd, William: Domine, salva nos
Spontone, Bartholomeo: Missa Ultimi miei sospiri (omitting Credo)
Ceballos, Rodrigo de: O pretiosum et admirabile sacramentum
In a historic Cantabrigian collegiate chapel setting like Catz, as members of the University affectionately call it, the acoustics can be described as strange, or even, in an extreme, possesses a special ability to frustrate rehearsal efforts. The misalignment of tuning was consistently a problem, though it did not stop people’s enthusiasm in understanding the musical language of Bartholomeo Spontone (d.1592), Italian composer and singer who held posts as maestro di capella in Bergamo, Verona and Treviso. The mass setting is a parody of the same titled madrigal by Phillipe Verdelot (d. before 1552). Verdelot certainly inspired many of his contemporaries through his works, Philippe de Monte also had a parody mass of the very same madrigal. Church music leaders frown upon mass settings that parodied madrigals and exclude them from music lists because of its degree of secular element (I was one of them). It was very inspiring to see David doing what most directors of church choir don’t dare to do: the key takeaway is parody mass settings of madrigals can be very effective when we transfer the emotional context of the madrigal and ‘install’ it upon the sacred element: the text. The Mass Ordinary is often overlooked because of its formulaic properties: it is stable, if not too predictable that singers mumble it through without expressing the essence of its theology through musical ideas. The piece O pretiosum et admirabile sacramentum by Spanish composer Rodrigo de Ceballos (d.1591) was also interesting. The challenge here was to find variety within imitative writing and contrary motions, as well as tackling the text. A collective difficulty was making the lt;gn and gt; palatal nasal consonant (as of the word dignitatem) clear yet keeping subtle which contributes to the piece’s calamity.
Overall, it was a very informative experience singing on this course whilst actively seeking understanding through the lens of David Allinson in terms of how to manage expectations on singers and building musical unity and blending. An immediate thought when I walked past the ticket barriers at the train station was, we all want to sing as long as we can! Changing voices among young teenage women and older age groups are sadly ignored: it is totally a myth that changes of singing voice only affect young men. I am certain David’s thorough and detailed vocal warm up sessions were greatly appreciated. His openness towards discussing vocal health and technique building within community choral settings called for more personal reflections on being encouraging and forgiving towards others whilst maintaining high expectations, as well as how to share the joy of early music with all age groups.
Now to the holidaying bit: next time when you’re doing a music course in the city of Cambridge, do remember to pay a visit to Jack’s Gelato next to the famous Eagle Pub (where the discovery of the science of DNA was announced) for some exceptional artisan gelati. I had the opportunity to taste the King’s College Lavender flavour, very refreshing and smooth indeed. You will be blown away by their culinary innovation: flavours are different every day, with vegan options available.
Bryan AU YEUNG
Student Representative
Published in November 2026 Newsletter
