CRMSS Pacific 2025 Course Description

Repertoire
Tutor Team
Performances
Instrumental Events
Lectures
A Typical Day
Cost
Location

CRMSS Pacific 2025 Dates:

Sunday, August 10th

to

Sunday, August 17th

2025

Repertoire

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CRMSS Pacific 2025 Theme

This Sceptred Isle: English Polyphony from The Eton Choirbook to Gibbons and Everything In Between

The Tallis Lamentations. Byrd's Ave verum corpus. Parsons' Ave Maria. The list goes on and on... Some of the best-known and most-loved pieces of Renaissance music were written by English composers. In choosing to focus on Tudor and Jacobean music at CRMSS Pacific 2025 we have given ourselves a luxurious set of choices to make. What not to include?

But perhaps we can think of it in a different way: what repertoire will help us to put the entire period of the English Renaissance - around 130 years - with its political and religious upheaval and huge societal change, into some sort of unified perspective? The goal will be to choose music that reflects as many different strands and stages of the development of this music as possible. We will sing music from the Eton Choirbook, the first major collection of music from the period, and get to know its inimitable style. But we'll also chart how this music gradually grew to eventually become Tomkins and Gibbons, through Nicholas Ludford and John Taverner, early Tallis and Christopher Tye. Lesser-known geniuses like William Mundy and Robert White will get special attention while we'll of course spend lots of time with the wonder that is William Byrd's music.

An English Renaissance theme also affords us huge scope for exploring instrumental music of different kinds. The instrumental offering at CRMSS Pacific 2024 was so varied and rich, it's exciting to think what we'll be able to make of string, keyboard, and plucked music from the pens of Gibbons, Byrd, and Dowland - to name but a few.

If you love Tudor polyphony, you have a lot to get excited about. If you are a bit bored by how 'over played' it is (for shame!), we promise to introduce you to pieces and styles you might not know so well! English polyphony is how many people get introduced to Renaissance music as a whole. Come and rediscover it with us in the intense and immersive environment of a week-long CRMSS course!

What types of singing will happen at CRMSS Pacific 2024?

Choral singing

A major focus of any CRMSS course is singing together as one large choir, preparing sacred a capella music from the Renaissance for our various public performances.

We will also divide the participants into two smaller chamber groups which work separately, and look at different repertoire from what is covered in the tutti group.

Consort singing: one and two per part vocal chamber music

Any serious amount of time spent getting to know the music of the Renaissance must include small-ensemble singing. The tutors will chose groups and assign them repertoire before the week begins, sending out scores and reference recordings so participants can prepare in advance and come with one or two pieces already learned.

It is in these small group settings that we can best explore secular repertoire from the Renaissance. We believe it is of particular importance that the secular music of this period be covered, as it provides a more vivid picture of the sorts of musical lives these musicians actually lived, be they composers or singers or both.

There will be opportunities to work on small ensemble music that participants bring themselves.

The pre-formed small groups will all be at least two-singers-per-part. There may also be time set aside for even smaller, one-per-part consorts to form and experiment with other repertoire, both on an ad hoc basis and under the direction of a member of staff.

Solo singing

While the majority of our time is spent preparing ensemble music in choral and small group contexts, good solo vocal technique is of course essential for good
singing. This applies to music written in any style and from any time period.

Solo singing and good vocal technique are core parts of any CRMSS course and we will be offering individual vocal technique sessions to all participants.

A previous tutor at our CRMSS Ontario courses, Matthew Long will make his first visit to CRMSS Pacific in 2025. He'll be in charge of the solo singing side of the course.

We are very lucky to have Lucas Harris, one of Canada's most prestigious lutenists, with us for the week. Lucas will be working with some lutenists as part of our CRMSS Pacific 2025 instrumental offering, but he will also be available to work with solo singers accompanying them on the lute.

Participants are enthusiastically encouraged to bring their own solo repertoire, and we suggest works written before 1650.

Tutor Team

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The full tutor team for CRMSS Pacific 2025 has not yet been confirmed, but below are the members of staff who have already committed to joining us. This list will grow in the coming weeks and months and we'll update this page as that happens.

Greg Skidmore, Matthew Long, Sharang Sharma, Christina Hutten, and Lucas Harris.

Click on each name to be taken to the "Tutors" page on our website where you can read more about each person.

Performances

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The details of the performances we will give as part of CRMSS Pacific 2025 are still being finalised. Below are descriptions of the performances that were part of CRMSS Pacific 2024. As the details of CRMSS Pacific 2025 firm up, we will post more information here.

Choral Evensong at St. James' Anglican Church, Vancouver

We prepared repertoire for a service of Choral Evensong in the English cathedral style and traveled to St. James' on Friday, August 9th, 2024 to sing at this service. This beautiful liturgy, during which the choir provides the lion's share of the material, consists of a Magnificat and Nunc dimittis setting, an Anthem, some choral Responses, and a Psalm set to Anglican chant. While the service of Evensong was an English creation in the 16th-century, modern cathedral practice allows for a range of repertoire and we found many appropriate pieces from within our Italy repertoire theme area.

Internal 'sharing' concert for CRMSS participants

Everyone who participated in CRMSS Pacific 2024 had a chance to perform any of the music they worked on over the course of the week, be it in their pre-formed smaller groups or in groups they formed themselves or the solo repertoire they worked on or music they bring themselves... or anything else! This event took place on Saturday, August 10th, 2024 and was not open to the public.

Mass at St Helen's Parish

At CRMSS Pacific 2024, we provided music for Mass at St. Helen's Parish on the morning of Sunday, August 11th, 2024. It was one of our main public events.

Final course concert

The culmination of any CRMSS week is the final public concert given by the participants. It is during this concert that we showcase all the different sorts of music that have gone on over the course of the week, including all of our different ensembles: tutti, chamber choirs, small groups, and soloists. At CRMSS Pacific 2024, this concert took place on Sunday, August 11th, 2024 and was held at St Helen's Parish in Burnaby Heights.

Daily evening church services

Throughout the week, at the end of each day, we will sing Compline at St. Helen's. Our Compline service is simple, sung in English or Latin, and is largely
made up of plainsong, with a few simple motets for contrast. It is designed not as something pressured or necessarily to be worked towards, but rather as a way of
bringing our day together to a peaceful close - precisely as the service was designed to do in its original monastic context. These services mainly serve as a
way for us to come together as a course and to experience the daily rhythm of liturgical music making that formed the wider context for most of the music we will
be studying.

CRMSS Pacific 2025 Instrumental Events

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Last year, our instrumental offering was great and varied and wonderful! Plans for how to match or exceed this in 2025 have yet to be finalised. Below you can find a description of what happened in 2024 and as we make our plans, this page will be updated.

CRMSS Pacific 2024 Keyboard Day

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At CRMSS Pacific 2024, Keyboard Day took place on Tuesday, August 6th, 2024.

New in 2024, CRMSS Pacific 2024 included the opportunity for keyboard players to explore Renaissance instruments, historical playing styles, and music of the period with Christina Hutten of the University of British Columbia as instructor. Some of the events in Keyboard Day included:

Instruments

We were very lucky to be able to offer the opportunity for keyboard players to hear and play the following instruments:

Repertoire

Students were welcome to bring Renaissance repertoire from all over Europe to work on in masterclasses. Here are a few composers to consider: Jehan Titelouze, Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Peter Philips, Thomas Weelkes, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Arnolt Schlick, Conrad Paumann, Paul Hofhaimer, Elias Nikolaus Ammerbach, Marc Antonio Cavazzoni, Girolamo Cavazzoni, Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Merulo, Giovanni de Macque, Giovanni Maria Trabaci, Antonio de Cabezon, or Girolamo Frescobaldi. There are also many anonymous compositions to be found in collections like the Faenza Codex or Buxheimer Orgelbuch, and the publications of Attaignant and others.

Possible extension

Additionally, advanced players of historical keyboard instruments had the opportunity to extend their participation in CRMSS Pacific 2024, allowing for a deeper dive into Renaissance keyboard music and ensemble playing skills over the course of a few days.

Level of experience required

The activities of Keyboard Day were open to lovers of historical keyboard music of every level. All participants had an opportunity to play the historical keyboard instruments and participate fully in workshops, but masterclass slots were offered on the basis of audition, arranged after your application. Students wishing to participate as a keyboard player beyond Keyboard Day were professional-track students or professional players of organ or other keyboard instruments.

CRMSS Pacific 2024 Lute Day

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Following up on 2023’s first Pacific Lute Day, we held another one on Wednesday, August 7th, 2024 from approximately 10:00am-6:00pm, led by CRMSS Pacific 2024 lute faculty member Lucas Harris.

Our special topic for August 7th was the Elizabethan broken consort (also sometimes called a “mixed consort” or “consort-of-six” or “Morley consort”).

Lutenist/scholar Ray Nurse brought some of his own reconstructions of broken consort instrumental repertoire, and Ray was on hand to guide us through the material. We were also joined by some special guest musicians to cover all six parts of a typical broken consort (treble viol, bass viol, and Renaissance flute in addition to the plucked instruments lute, cittern and bandora).

In the morning session, we looked at instrumental reconstructions, and in the afternoon session we added a one-to-a-part vocal ensemble (made up of singers from CRMSS Pacific 2024’s vocal program) to explore some rarely-heard psalm arrangements by William Leighton and Richard Allison which combine voices with the instruments of the broken consort. The day will finished with a very informal presentation of a few pieces, the audience being the CRMSS vocal participants and faculty.

CRMSS Pacific 2024 Viol Weekend & "Viol Petting Zoo"

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Sarah Poon led a multi-day event for viol players, from Friday, August 9th to Sunday, August 11th, 2024 concentrating on the viola da gamba in Italy, as well as working on consort skills with some of the best English repertoire for the instrument. Features of the viol course included:

Players of all levels were welcome, with the more experienced players taking on the music for public performance.

Viol Petting Zoo

Over and above the course Sarah gave for viol players, as part of her broader involvement with CRMSS Pacific 2024, she provided any CRMSS Pacific 2024 participant (regardless of whether they have any viol playing experience) the chance to try out viol playing in a "Viol Petting Zoo". Sarah is passionate about educating everyone about the glories of the viola da gamba and this aspect of CRMSS Pacific 2024 was a unique treat for everyone!

The "Viol Petting Zoo" was an opportunity for everyone to meet the viola da gamba family, learn some basic tips on holding and bowing, and get a chance to make sounds on this beautiful instrument. Treble, tenor, and bass viols were available for a delightful speed-dating experience!

The Viol Petting Zoo took place on Thursday, August 8th, 2024, and ran throughout the day. Small groups of singers "took their trip to the zoo" while ducking out of other sessions.

Lectures, Symposia, and Round Table discussions

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Our programme of talks and lectures at CRMSS Pacific 2025 isn't yet finalised. Below is a description of what happened at CRMSS Pacific 2024.

  • A very special "fireside chat" was led by Greg Skidmore, during which he spoke at length with CRMSS Patron and Director of The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips, about his life, the history of The Tallis Scholars, how Renaissance polyphony works, and much else besides!
  • Immediately after a short recital given by the CRMSS International Scholars at CRMSS Ontario 2024, there was an "Ask me anything" session in which our visitors from the UK were asked about the master's degree course they are studying on, as well as details of their individual journeys into professional singing.
  • Andrew Pickett gave an updated version of his popular talk from CRMSS 2019 entitled “It's Just Intonation: A practical guide to singing in tune, without all the drama”.
  • Dr. Kate Helsen, our CRMSS Academic Lead, gave a lecture that told us the story of how Thomas Tallis’ 40-voice motet Spem in alium came to be, and how important a player Alessandro Striggio was in that story.
  • Greg Skidmore led a round-table discussion entitled "Renaissance Music Performance in Canada: Past, Present, and Future". On the panel were David Skulski, Christina Hutten, Gerald King, Sharang Sharma, and Jonathan Stuchbery. The discussion involved descriptions of early experiments at the beginning of the Early Music movement, topics related to the current state of post-secondary education in Renaissance music, how to programme Renaissance music for a modern audiences, and much more.
  • Our very special guest, Dr. Susan Lewis, Vice-Provost (Academic Programs) of Western University and Professor of Musicology in the Department of Research and Composition at the Don Wright Faculty of Music gave a talk on her research interests: Renaissance Garden Culture and the Madrigal in England
  • Dr. Kate Helsen, our Academic Lead at CRMSS Ontario 2023, gave a talk entitled William Byrd: Wanted dead, alive, or Catholic
  • Our CRMSS 2022 Guest Artist, Robert Hollingworth, gave a talk entitled Method to the Madness in which he outlined the history of his group I Fagiolini, as well as its performance philosophy.
  • Dr. Kate Helsen secured special access for us to rarely viewed manuscripts and prints from the Renaissance held in the archives of Western University.
  • Dr. Aaron James gave a talk about how musicians in the time of Josquin des Prez actually learned music as students, using a system known as the Guidonian Hand, and entitled A Helping Hand: Guido, Hexachords, Solmization, and Musicianship in the Renaissance.
  • Dr. Kate Helsen showed us how Josquin des Prez was actually a pretty slippery character to pin down - who was he, actually? How many 'Josquins' were there? Her talk was entitled Josquin: Choose your own adventure.
  • Dr. Patrick Murray took us through the process of preparing a piece of Renaissance polyphony for modern day performance in his talk entitled Anything but ‘Ordinary:’ Bringing a Renaissance mass to life in contemporary performance.
  • Sharang Sharma took us through an introduction to some practical methods we can use to help learn the required musical skills to sight-read Renaissance music and chant effectively.
  • Dr. Roseen Giles gave a paper entitled “‘Don't worry, this will sing itself', and other musical fictions" about the practice of musica ficta.
  • Andrew Pickett presented “‘Drop the beat’ - Introduction to the theory and practice of vocal ensemble intonation”.
  • Dr. Kate Helsen introduced us to some of her fascinating new research in “What's in a Riff - Chant DNA in modal polyphony”.
  • Greg Skidmore, Matt Long, and Emily Atkinson took part in a round table discussion led by Dr. Giles entitled “Being a Professional Singer in the UK”, taking questions on every aspect of their professional lives in the UK.
  • Lucas Harris gave a lecture entitled “Musica Transalpina: The madrigal in Italy & England, c1600”
  • Dr. Kate Helsen gave us a crash course in Renaissance musical notation with her workshop entitled “Partly Useful: Renaissance notation”
  • Dr. Troy Ducharme of the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University wrapped our heads around Gesualdo's wild sounds with “Beyond Rules: Counterpoint Technique, Musical Meaning, and Style in Selected Works of Gesualdo.”

A Typical Day

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We are always in the process of tweaking the daily schedule to get things just right, and pacing our time together is very important. At CRMSS Pacific 2025 we will follow the basic outline below, but the daily schedule is very much subject to change. Special events happening throughout the week will mean any given day's schedule may deviate from this significantly.

9:45am
Full course warmup
10:00am
Full course choral rehearsal - 2.5 hours, including a 20 minute tea break
12:30pm
Lunch
2:00pm
Small group work and/or solo sessions, including a 10 minute break
3:00pm
Lecture / Symposium / Round Table / Masterclass, including a 10 minute break
4:00pm
Continued small group work, ad hoc, or solo sessions, including a 10 minute break
5:00pm
Full course choral rehearsal - 1 hour, including a 10 minute break
6:00pm
Dinner
7:00pm
Full course choral rehearsal - 1 hour, including a 10 minute break
8:00pm
Compline rehearsal (approx. 45 min)
9:00pm
Compline (approx. 30-45 min)
10:00pm
Pub / Home / Sleep / Late night singing!

Cost

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For Singers:

$650

Full price for a singer

$450

Student rate

Anyone who is or was enrolled in full or part-time education in one or both of the 2024-25 or 2025-26 academic years, studying any subject, qualifies as a current student.

We are proud not to have raised our fees since last year.

For Instrumentalists:

Our instrumental offering at CRMSS Pacific 2025 is still being finalized. Costs will be posted here when they have been decided.

More information about the cost of attending

If finances are a barrier to participation, please speak to us about it and we will try to assist, as we're able.

If you would like to support the tuition fees of others who need it, please get in touch with us about making a designated donation. You can learn more about supporting CRMSS on our Donate page.

You will need to cover your travel to Burnaby and your accommodation, if required, during the week. While CRMSS doesn't bear these costs, we do try to help as much as we can with your logistics.

Location

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CRMSS Pacific 2025 will be held at St. Helen's Parish in Burnaby, British Columbia.

The address is: 3860 Triumph Street, Burnaby BC, V5C 2A6

You can find directions to St Helen's Parish on our contact page.