CRMSS Ontario 2025 Course Description
CRMSS Ontario 2025 Dates:
Saturday, May 24th
to
Sunday, June 1st
2025
Repertoire
Back to topCRMSS Ontario 2025 Theme
The theme of CRMSS Ontario 2025 was Harmonia Caelorum: Celebrating Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlando Gibbons.
This year we again celebrated some important composer anniversaries at CRMSS Ontario 2025. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born in 1525 and Orlando Gibbons died in 1625, their lives demarcating an important century in the development of High Renaissance style. These two composers defined, in different ways, late Renaissance compositional technique and voice, and Gibbons in particular paved the way for an elegance and poise in musical aesthetic that was not to reach its zenith until centuries after his death.
But why Harmonia Caelorum? What is it specifically about the music of Palestrina and Gibbons that brings to mind a heavenly harmony? Both composers wrote with a quiet confidence and a sense of inevitability, deep formal understanding, and clarity of purpose. Their music can conjure up ideas of "perfection" or "flawlessness", in a way that - for instance - Mozart has long been associated with. The "harmony of the spheres" was important as a philosophical concept during the time and the relationship between music and perfection or music as a mouthpiece for the divine order on earth was something that many composers engaged with during the Renaissance and which these two men in particular articulated to great effect.
At previous CRMSS courses, we have either focussed on a national style or on a particular collection of repertoire. At CRMSS Ontario 2025, we experimented with a repertoire theme that is more open-ended and leaves greater room for interpretation. We, of course, performed a lot of music by Palestrina and Gibbons(!) but we also explored music dedicated to the Virgin Mary in her role in Catholic devotion as "Queen of Heaven". We also explored secular themes: astronomy and astrology, and even alchemy, were Renaissance idées fixes.
Particular repertoire highlights included Palestrina's Stabat mater. We will also concentrated on his lesser-known secular music. Gibbons pioneered the verse anthem genre, and we used this as a spring board to explore the burgeoning Jacobean taste for solo vocal music.
What types of singing happened at CRMSS Ontario 2025?
Choral
A major focus of the week's work is singing together as one large choir, exploring larger scale, mainly sacred a capella music of the Renaissance. The specific repertoire chosen will depend on the distribution of voices amongst the course participants.
We also divided the participants into two smaller chamber groups which work separately, and looked at different repertoire from what is covered in the tutti group.
Solo
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 during any time period, including the Renaissance.
Solo singing and good vocal technique are core parts of CRMSS and we believe that solo and ensemble singing can sit comfortably side by side, one informing and enhancing the other.
Participants are enthusiastically encouraged to bring their own solo repertoire written before 1630.
We are lucky to have had Lucas Harris, one of Canada's most prestigious lutenists, on our tutor team since 2018. Lucas again led Lute Day at CRMSS Ontario 2025, and was available to work with solo singers, accompanying them on the lute in lessons and repertoire coaching sessions.
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 chose groups and assigned them repertoire before the week began, sending out scores and reference recordings so participants could 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.
As with solo repertoire, there were opportunities to work on small ensemble music that participants brought themselves.
The pre-formed small groups were all at least two-singers-per-part. Everyone was allocated into two of these small groups.
Tutor Team
Back to topThe tutor team for CRMSS Ontario 2025 was:
Greg Skidmore, Tom Castle, Victoria Meteyard, Sharang Sharma, Lucas Harris, and Dr. Kate Helsen.
We were also glad to have CRMSS International Scholars with us again this year. This was a group of students studying on the Solo Voice Ensemble Singing master's degree programme at the University of York in the UK.
Click on each name above to be taken to the Tutors page to read about that person.
Performances
Back to topLatin Choral Vespers at The Chapel of Windermere on the Mount
Because of a substantial programme of repair works at St Peter's Seminary, we moved our regular service of Latin Choral Vespers to The Chapel at Windermere on the Mount in 2024. This was another spectacular venue, and it was a privilege to sing here. The service, conducted entirely in Latin and using the Tridentine Rite, involves a large amount of Gregorian plainsong interspersed with polyphonic motets and psalms.
Choral Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral
In 2023 we travelled to St. Paul's Cathedral in downtown London to perform an English cathedral choir style Evensong service. We sang the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis from William Byrd'sGreat Service, one of the masterpieces of the English cathedral choir repertoire.
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. St. Paul's Catherdal hosted this concert us in 2023 and at CRMSS Ontario 2024 we hosted the biggest concert yet of any CRMSS course, at our host venue New St. James Presbyterian Church. We took advantage of the wonderful, full balcony to perform Spem in alium and other of our large-scale music in style!
Daily evening church services
Throughout the week, at the end of each day, we will sing the beautiful service of Compline. Our Compline service is simple, sung in English, 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. At CRMSS Ontario 2025, we will be singing our Compline services exclusively at St. John the Evangelist Church, one of our two host venues.
Internal 'sharing' concert for CRMSS participants
Everyone who participates in CRMSS Ontario 2025 will have a chance to perform any of the music they work on over the course of the week, be it in their pre-formed smaller groups or in groups they form themselves or the solo repertoire they work on or music they bring themselves... or anything else! This event will take place on Saturday, May 31st and will not be open to the public.
A Typical Day
Back to topWe are always in the process of tweaking the daily schedule to get things just right, and pacing our time together is very important to us. At CRMSS Ontario 2025 followed this basic outline. Special events happening throughout the week meant any given day's schedule may have deviated from this significantly.
Soft launch
After last year's successful trial of this format, CRMSS Ontario 2025 again began with a 'soft launch'. The course began on the afternoon of Saturday, May 24th 2025 with a longer registration period and time for the participants to find their feet in our venues, New St. James Presbyterian Church and St. John the Evangelist Church. The singing that day consisted of a tutti rehearsal, followed by drinks and nibbles. We sang Compline on the evening of the 24th, but this service was simple and did not contain the more sophisticated polyphony we incorporated into Compline later in the week.
The right pace
The week is a busy one and it's important that everyone gets enough down time.
Attendance at Compline each evening was not be compulsory, but was greatly encouraged! The feedback we've received from those who did attend every night in previous years was that it is a wonderful way to bring each day to a close, but we also understand that participants need to sleep! Everyone was also welcome to attend Compline and not sing if in need of some vocal rest.
At CRMSS Ontario 2025 we will renewed our commitment to adhere to our (complicated!) schedule and keep to time, especially toward the end of each day.
Attendance at the talks was also not compulsory, but very much encouraged. These were excellent opportunities to get a glimpse into the context behind the music and hear from world renowned experts in Renaissance music and culture.
Lectures, Symposia, and Round Table discussions
Back to topThe course included some sessions in which we - don't - sing! These discussions provided context for the practical music making which was the focus of the course, and highlighted the importance of scholarship in performance.
CRMSS Ontario 2025 Lute Events
Back to topTwo mini-CRMSS courses just for lutenists!
Following on from the success of Lute Day at previous CRMSS courses, we offered more events for lutenists at CRMSS Ontario 2025.
Introduction to the Lute for high school students
Date:
Sunday afternoon May 25th, 2:00pm - 4:30pm
Location:
New St James Presbyterian Church
Cost:
$30
The workshop was aimed at approximately high school aged students with some experience on guitar, be it in the classroom or though private or self-directed study.
Students were introduced to the lute and related instruments in a hands-on setting, exploring how music for the lute sounds as they learned a short piece as a group, discovered, how lute music used to be written down, how the lute is held and played, and more. We used instruments on loan to us from private collections and various string banks. We took in some of the Renaissance lute's colourful history and learned how this instrument became hugely popular all over Europe in a relatively short time.
Some participants may have played lute music on guitar in school or lessons, for example through the curriculum of the Royal Conservatory of Music. Lucas Harris, one of Canada's leading lute players, played a few RCM pieces to demonstrate how this music sounds on an actual lute or vihuela. A singer joined us so we could hear how the lute is used to accompany vocalists. Wilma van Berkel, a lute maker, presented a short talk about how these instruments come into being in her London Ontario shop.
Those who attended this Introduction event, were welcome also to come back for the concert on Lute Day, Tuesday May 27th. This was given by participants in that event, as well as some of the rest of the CRMSS Ontario 2025 staff.
Lute Day
Date:
Tuesday May 27th, 2026
Location:
New St James Presbyterian Church
Cost:
$125
Cost
Back to top$650
Full price for a singer
$450
Student rate for a singer
$30
Introduction to the Lute
$125
Lute Day
This year our fees were unchanged from 2024. We believe these rates represent extremely good value and we are proud not to have raised our fees.
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, qualified as a current student.
Travel and Accommodation
Those who attended either the full course or just Lute Day, covered travel to London Ontario and accommodation, if required. While CRMSS doesn't bear these costs, we do try to help as much as we can with logistics, including arranging pick ups and drop offs at local bus or train stations or London International Airport.
Location
Back to topCRMSS Ontario 2025 was held in two venues:
New St. James Presbyterian Church in London, Ontario: 280 Oxford St E, London, ON N6A 1V4
St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church, 280 St James St, London, ON N6A 1X3
You can find directions to both these venues on our Contact page.