"This Web site was created in autumn 2003 without other purposes than those arising from the pleasure of contributing to the disclosure of some news on that genius whose art so much passion there, George Frideric Handel. " (transl. ed.) A site dedicated to all that is Handel. Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 27, 2008 | Hits: 523

Burg Fürsteneck , Academy in Germany, provides a worldwide unique vocational training for medieval music for musicians. The teachers are Marc Lewon and Uri Smilansky. 

Also at castle BURG FÜRSTENECK: Workshops for early music and historical dance and Workshops for medieval music.

Burg Fürsteneck
Akademie für berufliche und musisch-kulturelle Weiterbildung
Am Schlossgarten 3
D-36132 Eiterfeld
Germany
Tel: +49 / 6672 / 92020
Fax: +49 / 6672 / 920230

Added on: Apr 29, 2008 | Hits: 488

"Just outside the town of Blankenburg / Harz, in wooded and scenic landscape, is located in a former Cistercian monastery, Stiftung Kloster Michaelstein.

This foundation, under public law, is a training and research facility for musical performance practice of European rank and international importance. The Music Institute Michael Stein is also one of the major concert promoters in the south-west of Saxony-Anhalt.

With its well-preserved monastery, monastery gardens and an interesting instrument exhibition the foundation is at the same time as a tourist centre in the Harz region. ..." Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 08, 2008 | Hits: 514

"The Centro di Musica Antica Pietà de’ Turchini is the result of the decision of musicians, musicologists and historians of the theatre to pool their personal experiences in research and the performing arts, setting up an interdisciplinary project centred on the history of music and drama in Naples during the Baroque period. The premises of the Centro di Musica Antica are part of a complex of historical buildings (Convent and Church of Santa Caterina da Siena) once known as the Conservatorio della Solitaria. ...

Since 1996, the Centro di Musica Antica has been promoting a wide-ranging cultural project based on the recuperation of the vast musical heritage constituted in Naples during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. This involves identifying and studying the sources for that fertile period of musical and theatrical production, organising concert series featuring the repertoire, and holding seminars and masterclasses in advanced Baroque performance for young musicians and singers. To further its research activities the Centre has set up a proficuous collaboration with prestigious Italian and European institutions including University of Naples "Federico II", Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, Fundaciò La Caixa de Barcellona and Fondation Royaumont de Paris. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 12, 2008 | Hits: 341

"At first sight La Folia already looks like an interesting building constructed quietly in the course of centuries on the foundations of earlier settlements. It's a great experience to see that the development of the numerous fascinating elements and delicate details is consuming composers, performers and listeners alike as an anchor in musical thought, like a cathedral built during centuries.

For those people who are interested in the folia theme there is a disturbing lack of good sources. The information available is very superficial and can only be found in very general reference works and review articles, apart from the scientifical study by Richard Hudson (see literature) which is only available at specialized conservatories and where the focus is on the transition of the early to the later folia. This website is an effort to collect as much relevant information as possible on la folia. Every contribution, be it a new line of approach, a suggestion or a discussion will be welcomed. Added to that it is almost impossible for one person to check all musical new releases for possible new variations of la folia.

This website was built in the hope that from every part of the world new discoveries will get their names here in the inventory, so that they will be part of a collective musical tradition and awareness.

Finally it serves as a tribute to the still growing organism called La Folia. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 14, 2008 | Hits: 346

"The Early Music Institute at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music provides a comprehensive program in the study of historical performance on original instruments of music before ca.1800, supplementing performance with research and theoretical studies, leading to degrees at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. The faculty consists of internationally known performers who specialize in the performance of early repertory. The EMI is fortunate in enjoying university-wide academic support from disciplines as diverse as musicology, computer studies, literature, medieval studies, and fine arts.

The program includes private lessons in voice and on historical instruments along with extensive solo and ensemble performance opportunities. Academic courses are designed to provide an understanding of the many practical and theoretical areas essential to performance of medieval, renaissance, baroque, and classical music (e.g. improvisation, ornamentation, articulation, basso continuo, solmization, historical notation, bibliography, organology, etc.). Research is encouraged, and opportunities for research are provided both in academic courses and in elective special projects. The faculty of the Early Music Institute makes every effort to accommodate a student's specialized interests without losing sight of a broader commitment to artistic excellence and scholarship. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Aug 13, 2008 | Hits: 357

"This web site is devoted to musicians interested in playing early keyboard instruments using authentic techniques, and very especially to the readers of my Baroque Keyboard Fingerings book in its previous editions (1983, 1985, 1988, 2003). ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jan 15, 2009 | Hits: 500

"The Bach Consort performs the music of J.S. Bach, exploring the riches of his more than 200 secular and religious cantatas. Formed in 1992 by bass player Timothy Dawson and baritone Gordon McLeod, The Bach Consort includes a core of members from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Tafelmusik, as well as some of Canada's most sought-after singers and instrumentalists. Soprano Monica Whicher, baritone Russell Braun, alto Elizabeth Turnbull; tenors Michael Shade and Benjamin Butterfield; baritones Brett Polegato and Kevin MacMillan---have appeared with the Canadian Opera Company, with most Canadian Orchestras, and with major opera companies in North America and Europe.

These artists have lent the gift of Bach's music, performing for community groups such as Camphill Village Ontario and L'Arche--- communities for adults with disabilities---and Settlement House Music School. As well, the ensemble has helped in the fundraising activities of Out of the Cold and Share the Warmth. Their concerts provided these organizations with a musical forum from which they reached out to the public. To that end, the group has recorded two compact discs in aid of charity: The Bach Consort at Camphill and The Bach Consort at L'Arche. In designing its programme, The Bach Consort chooses music to highlight the performers in a variety of solo and ensemble works. This follows the Baroque tradition of creating an obbligato or instrumental solo, which interweaves with the vocal line. The ensemble often performs without a conductor, reaching a musical consensus during rehearsals prior to their concerts. Once this artistic agreement has been forged, The Bach Consort is ready to share the depth and joy of Bach's music with its generous audience.

Timothy Dawson, Founder
Timothy is a member of the string bass section of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He began his studies in Edmonton with Peter Marck, who is now Co-Principal Bass of the Israel Philharmonic. Timothy continued his education at the University of Toronto with Tom Monahan (then Principal Bass of the TSO). He graduated in the Spring of 1979 and started with the TSO thereafter. Since joining the orchestra, Tim has been actively involved in organizing concerts. Two groups have grown out of this love of chamber music; The Bach Consort and BASStiality." Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Feb 20, 2009 | Hits: 649

“The Venice School of Early Music
(Scuola di Musica Antica di venezia, SMAV) is a non-profit organisation created in 1991 to promote the study of early music. It is the only school in Venice devoted to early music.

The main activity of the school is the organisation of specialist courses in early music performing techniques.

Besides its didactic activities SMAV also organises Early Music festivals, concerts and recordings: it was responsible for the International Festival of Early Music in Venice, in 1992 and 1994; from 1999 ito 2007 it has taken part every year in the Venezia Suona - Festa Europea della Musica; since 1997 it has been organizing every friday and saturday a series of concerts entitled Il Concertino in famiglia in association with the Querini Stampalia Foundation (more than 1000 concerts in twelve years).

In 1996 the teachers of the school recorded the CD La musica del Tiepolo (venetian music at the time of the painter Giambattista Tiepolo)
SMAV published the musical guide-book Venezia, i luoghi della musica (1995) by Aldo Bova, and I balli di Gaetano Grossatesta (2002), essaies on a recently discovered manuscript of Venetian Baroque dance.

SMAV promotes exchange projects with other associations and instutions: teachers of the school were invited to teach at the Conseravtories of Zwolle (Netherland), Potenza (Italy) and the universities of Graz (Austria) and Cremona (Italy). SMAV has been partner of MediMuses project, supported by the European Union. “ Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 22, 2009 | Hits: 317

“ ‘The Convent’, run by an innovative mixed enterprise that was the brainchild of the General Council of the Moselle and the Town of Sarrebourg, and which now includes the International Centre for the Paths of the Baroque and the K617 record label, has today become a truly cultural phenomenon, with a wealth of projects and a bright future in store.

The General Council of the Moselle is proud to support those who make and who shall continue to make this site a place for discovery and encounter, as well as a showcase for artistic and cultural development.“ Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 22, 2009 | Hits: 367

“The revelation of a vanished musical continent

It is a source of pride for the K617 label honour to have been the promoter and driving force behind a crucial musicological discovery: the missing portion of the universal phenomenon of Baroque music, born beyond the oceans, which had been thought lost forever. Now imitated by others (but never equalled!), this policy was immediately backed by the AFAA (Association Française d’Action Artistique, a division of the French Foreign Ministry) and the Fondation Paribas (now Fondation BNP PARIBAS). It has been constantly accompanied by a multitude of diffusion and training initiatives and exchange and overseas aid programmes, run in partnership with "LE COUVENT" Centre International des Chemins du Baroque de Saint-Ulrich at Sarrebourg (Moselle département), which have been aimed successively at Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Chile.

This voyage of discovery into the heart of a lost continent of music has drastically changed our view of musical history, and it is of prime importance to discover each step of the journey through these recordings. Gabriel Garrido was the pioneer who began the adventure, in the company of the musicians of Elyma, the Coro de Niños de Cordoba and the Cor Vivaldi-El Petits Cantors de Catalunya. But this ‘saga’ has also revealed the talents of new arrivals: the splendid Camerata de Caracas, the Ensemble Louis Berger of Buenos Aires, the Ensemble Ars Longa of Havana, the ensembles Vox Brasiliensis and Turicum, or, finally, the Jovenes Musicos of Urubicha, whose mellow, naive expressiveness is proof of the miracle of ‘living Baroque’, preserved for more than two centuries by the natives in this Bolivian region on the edge of the Amazon forest.“ Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 22, 2009 | Hits: 381

“Over the past twenty years, the “Centre de musique médiévale de Paris” provides instruction on the ancient musical practices. Amateur and professional co-exist without too strict a hierarchy: the beginners will find introductory workshops which allow an initiation with the music; enthusiasts can try a more complete immersion through different possibilities; musicologists confront their theoretical know-how that in turn complete their knowledge; performers or music teachers, finally, come to find vocational training almost never taught elsewhere, deepening their knowledge in terms of style, performance, and theoretical knowledge.”

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: May 07, 2009 | Hits: 392

“The Musicological Society of Australia exists to foster greater understanding and valuing of music, musical thinking and musical life by:

• Providing an Australian forum for communication about music
• Encouraging excellence in music research and research training
• Facilitating the dissemination of the outcomes of music research“

Added on: May 09, 2009 | Hits: 497

“Research and Performance of Historical Arts and Culture“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: May 11, 2009 | Hits: 293

“18th Century Music has been launched to be an interactive music resource on the web. We invite contributions from academics and students, performers and audiences alike and ask only that you become a member of the site and that what you submit is both interesting and informative.

Start a debate in one of our forums, get your work published electronically, you can even get a free web-based email address here!

We provide resources like composer biographies, stylistic descriptions, reviews and comment, in addition to links to other music sites and services. Please join our 18th Century 'Family' and take part in promoting and discussing this amazing part of musical history.

18th Century Music is also linked to Cantata Editions which prepares and publishes the work of editors around the globe, presenting 17th and 18th century musical works in accurate performing editions.“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: May 16, 2009 | Hits: 469

“Main research topics: music iconography; history of the lute and its music; historical and biographical reconstructions.“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: May 18, 2009 | Hits: 317

“Tim Crawford worked for 15 years as a freelance lutenist and theorbo player, during which time he worked with most of the leading conductors and ensembles active in baroque music, and played on a number of recordings made during the 1980s. In 1989 he joined the Music Department at King’s College, London, where his active interest in using computers to aid with musicological investigation became a professional one. He is the current editor of the Sämtliche Werke of the great German lutenist, Silvius Leopold Weiss (1686-1750), an exact contemporary and friend of J.S. Bach.“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: May 18, 2009 | Hits: 417

“The International Inventory of Musical Sources - Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) - is a crosscountry
non-prof it joint venture which aims at comprehensive documentation of the w orldw ide existing musical
sources.

Musical sources are manuscripts or  printed music, w orks on music theory and libretti stored in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections.

The organization, founded in Paris in 1952, is the largest and the only global operation that registers w ritten musical sources.

RISM documents what exists and w here it is stored. On the one hand the musical traditions are protected through cataloging in a comprehensive encyclopedia and on the other made available to musicologists and musicians.

Archiving is thus not an end in itself, but leads to practical application.“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jun 10, 2009 | Hits: 645

“Patrick Ayrton has always had a passion for keyboard instruments, first the piano, then the organ and the harpsichord. He studied with François Demierre in Switzerland, with Alfred Mitterhofer at the Vienna Academy, in Austria, where he obtained his virtuosity diploma "cum laude", before specialising with Ton Koopman at The Hague conservatory. Patrick Ayrton was a prizewinner at the organ competitions in Innsbruck (1983) and in Bruges (1985).

He has since been invited by leading ensembles, such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orlando Vocal Ensemble of Fribourg (Switzerland), the London Royal Choral Society and Brandenburg Consort, as well as the Amsterdam Combattimento Consort. In France, he is a regular guest with the Orchestre d'Auvergne, whose musical director, Arie van Beek, has encouraged him to develop his conducting skills and entrusted him with the direction of several programmes.

Though born in London, Patrick Ayrton has now settled in Burgundy, near Chalon-sur-Saône, with his family. In recent years, he has become increasingly involved in French musical life. Among other engagements, he is the artistic director of the festival "Bach en Combrailles" in Auvergne.

Patrick is also an active pedagogue, teaching harpsichord, continuo and chamber music at The Hague Conservatory, in the Netherlands. He gives masterclasses in Russia (the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the Gnessin School) and in Austria (the Summer Academy of the Salzburg Mozarteum). His recordings are published by the Dutch label Globe.

In 2004 he founded Ars Burgundiae, with a view to rehabilitating the works of Joseph Touchemoulin.“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 06, 2009 | Hits: 306

“These pages have been written to explain a quaint aspect of French musical life under the reign of Louis XV. The hurdy-gurdy (Vielle à roue), which so far had been customarily an instrument used by beggars playing on streets corners (lira mendicorum), unexpectedly became the object of a sudden and powerful enthusiasm. From 1725 to 1765, with more than two hundred published pieces of music, it invaded the world of aristocracy and even conquered the royal family. In this study, we are making an attempt to understand the reasons for that sudden and ephemeral passion.

Our thesis is that the hurdy-gurdy became an instrument destined to serve the myth of Arcadia, commonly believed in during that period of time, by representing the image of the idealized countryman, a central character of the eighteenth century, with whom "personnes de qualité" tried to identify themselves. In order to remove and purify it from any memory of its association with beggars and to make it become the Lyre of Apollo, the manufacture, the playing, the repertory of the hurdy-gurdy had to be completely transformed. The challenge was also to promote an idealized country life so as to make the hurdy-gurdy an instrument worthy to enter the Pantheon of the noble instruments of the aristocrats. As to the repertory, is it possible to say that the hurdy-gurdy is suitable for any high-level music score? Or rather should we say that it could serve only the country repertory, which is then to be defined as music of a rustic and popular style, even though completely transformed by the highly technical task of adjusting music to the baroque taste, which we call "Baroquisation"

Let us add that we worked within the interdisciplinary framework not only of Musicology (by the study of performance techniques and repertory analysis), but also of Psychoanalysis, Mythology and sociology. ..“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 28, 2009 | Hits: 298

“

The Society was founded in 1963 to increase and diffuse the knowledge of musical acoustics and instruments, and to promote its practical applications.

The CAS is best known for its pioneering work in the development of scientific insights and their application to the construction of new and conventional instruments of the violin family.

Its founder, Carleen Hutchins, along with other CAS leaders, developed methods for tuning the free plates of an instrument before its assembly. These methods are now used by violin makers around the world. ..“

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Added on: Jul 29, 2009 | Hits: 384

“Ars Hispana is a project dedicated to the recovery of the Spanish musical patrimony through the publication of studies and work editions, mainly unpublished, composed from 16th to 19th centuries

Ars Hispana is an editorial project by Raúl Angulo Díaz and Antoni Pons Seguí. It is born at the beginning of 2009, and its aim is to approach Spanish and Ibero-American music from 16th to 19th centuries, to musicians, musicologists and fans.

The studies and editions of Spanish and Iberic-American music are few and difficult to find. For that reason, Ars Hispana insists in offering trustworthy editions, often of works not yet published, based always on the original sources and with the pertinent critical apparatus.

One of the preferred research lines of Ars Hispana is the one of scenic music in Spain and Ibero-America at 17th and 18th centuries.

Ars Hispana is an independent project, which does not count on the support of any public nor private institution. Nevertheless, for diverse specific projects, we collaborate with diverse musical groups, since the final mission of editions is that the published works are offered to the public in concerts. “

Visit website for more information. (Admin)

Added on: Oct 18, 2009 | Hits: 485

“The Fryderyk Chopin Institute

The activities of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, which was established in 2001
on the basis of an act of the Polish Parliament, cover the following areas:

• research and popularization of knowledge about Chopin’s life and work,
• publications,
• organization of concerts, conferences, courses,
• cooperation with institutions and organizations dealing in the protection of the Chopin heritage,
• gathering of Chopin-related archive materials and museum objects,
• monitoring of whether Chopin’s image and name are not used for commercial purposes,
• running a Chopin Information Centre (Internet site)“

Added on: Nov 01, 2009 | Hits: 259

“The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women is a network of scholars who meet annually, sponsor sessions at conferences, maintain a listserv and website, give awards for outstanding scholarship, and support one another's work in the field.

EMW welcomes scholars and teachers from any discipline who study women and their contributions to the cultural, political, economic, or social spheres of the early modern period and whose interest in it includes attention to gender and representations of women.“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Feb 13, 2010 | Hits: 245

“The Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (SCSC) is a scholarly society that is interested in the early modern era (ca. 1450-ca. 1660). Our geographical scope is as worldwide as our membership. The society welcomes scholars from all disciplines who have an interest in early modern studies. SCSC holds one annual meeting a year with approximately 140 sessions for papers. The annual meeting preferably and traditionally takes place on the last full weekend of October. ..“

Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Feb 13, 2010 | Hits: 343