Feast of early music

Press, 28 November 1980, Page 9

Feast of early music

Wellington reporter Early music enthusiasts will have a chance for seven days next year to sit at the feet of international masters of early music. The school, organised by the Early Music Union in conjunction with the Wellington Polytechnic, will be from August 28 to September 6, with places for 120 people. It is being advertised in Australia and first applicants will be the first accepted. Negotiations are under way to engage as tutors, Howard Mayer Brown. Professor of Music at the University of Chicago, internationally renowned renaissance recorder player, and prolific writer on renaissance music; Bruce Haines, professor of ba-

roque oboe at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague, also internationally renowned as a baroque oboist; Anthony Rooley, lutanist, director of The Consort of Musicke in England, frequent recorder for L’Oiseau Lyre; and Emma Kirkby, a member of the Consort of Musicke, and a well known English singer of early music. New Zealand tutors will include Robert Oliver, viol player, freelance professional performer, a member of the Ensemble Dufay, and a former student with Wieland Kuijken in Belgium; AnthonyJennings, keyboard, lecturer in organ and harpsichord at the Auckland Conservatorium, .director of Music at Holy Trinity Cathedral,- Auckland, and a graduate of the Royal

Conservatorium in Brussels; and Peter Walls, baroque strings, senior lecturer in music at Victoria University, and director of the Baroque Players. Activities planned include classes for viola, keyboard instruments, baroque woodwind, renaissance woodwind, lute, dance and singing, baroque orchestra, renaissance groups, daily concerts by students and tutors, and sessions on the making and maintenance of early instruments. There is no age limit for the school, or other eligibility criteria. Fees have yet to be set. Participants must bring their own instruments.

The school was planned by the Early Music Union to meet a rising interest in early music.