Ensemble Organum, 1994
Santo Domingo de Silos, 1968
“Mozarabic” chant is the ancient liturgical chant of the Spanish catholics during the Moorish occupation. (“Mozarábes” was the name given to the Christian community living under Arab Islamic rule.) During this period the Christians of the region were isolated from the rest of Western Europe, and from the process whereby the “Gregorian” chant became the universal music of the western church. Mozarabic chant thus remained closer to the music of the early Christian church with its Hellenic roots, and forms a link between Western chant and the Byzantine tradition.
After the ending of the Moorish occupation in the late 11th century the Iberian church was re-united with Western christendom, but the Mozarabic oral tradition continued alongside the Gregorian and the Mozarabic chant could still be heard in many churches, most notably in the cathedral of Toledo. In the 15th century, the chants were recorded in writing thanks to Cardinal Cisneros, using the same notation which is used for Gregorian chant.
The workshop will introduce the participants to some of the key moments of the mozarabic rite.
Frédéric Tavernier-Vellas was born in France in 1959. After studying classical music and the oboe, he turned his musical research interests to singing, and more specifically the classical music which developed in Greece during the Byzantine Empire. He was trained by masters and singers such as Father Ioakim Grillis of Patmos, Maximos Fahmé from Aleppo (Syria), Lycourgos Angelopoulos, director of the Byzantine Choir of Greece, being his main teacher. He graduated in Byzantine Music from the Philippos Nakas conservatory in Athens under the guidance of Philippos Nakas himself. He wrote the book Les Voix de Byzance, published in 2005 by éditions Desclée de Brouwer, in collaboration with Lycourgos Angelopoulos.
He founded Les Solistes de la Musique Byzantine, an ensemble dedicated to introducing audiences to the treasures of Byzantine musical culture.
Together with Fouad Didi, reknowned master in arab andalusian music, he also founded a group, D'Asie-mineure en Andalousie, whose purpose is to facilitate exchanges and sharing between the traditional repertoire of greek music from Asia Minor and the traditional arab andalusian one.
Frédéric Tavernier-Vellas is a member of Organum, an ensemble created by Marcel Pérès, and has been regularly participating in the research, recordings and concerts performed by this group in the last ten years.
We will start at midday on Thursday 6 March and study until about 6 p.m.; on Friday and Saturday we will work quite intensively from approxmately 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (with breaks as appropriate), and on Sunday morning we will prepare a programme for a short concert to be given early Sunday afternoon.
It is permissible to arrive a little later (e.g. on Friday), but you will need to work hard to catch up!
The teaching languages will be French and English, with transation into Dutch if needed. The location is central Antwerp, exact location of the sessions will be announced later but will be in the “Sint-Andrieskwartier” and the final concert will take place in the Sint-Andrieskerk (Saint Andrew's church) at 4 p.m. on Sunday 9 March. For budget accomodation we recommend the Antwerp Central Hostel “Pulcinella”, Bogaardeplein 1, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium, tel. +32 3 234 03 14: http://www.jeugdherbergen.be/en/youth-hostels/city-hostels/antwerpen-pulcinella. This is very popular, book early to avoid disappointment.
No specific previous training is required in order to attend the course, and we welcome participants from outside the music-educational “mainstream”. However in order to make progress in the short time available participants should be familiar with the basic principles of music theory and notation; a familiarity with the “square” notation as used in Gregorian chant is an advantage. Most important though is an attentive ear; this music lives by inflexions and ornaments, and to merely “sing the notes” is to miss the point.
The fee for the course is 120 euros, excluding meals and accomodation. If you would like to attend or need further information please contact Chris Gray at mozarabe@koningbalthazar.be.