SWEMF Workshop for voices & instruments, with Mark Wilson.
26th September 2026 — Keynsham parish church.
Keynsham parish church proved to be an excellent venue for us, having not only historical and architectural character but also space enough to accommodate a largish group of singers and instrumentalists, and a convenient hall for coffee and other essentials. It also has the great advantage of being more-or-less equidistant from Bristol and Bath, with a train station that is a couple of hundred yards away; also a little carpark is tucked away on a cul-de-sac to the north-east of the church. It was also good to include the church’s director of music in the day’s music-making.
It’s not the venue that makes or breaks such a day, however. For one thing, one also needs interesting music. Liturgically, we came at this music at the wrong season, but it was nonetheless a rare and welcome opportunity to encounter some Renaissance polyphony composed for the feast of Pentecost, by composers who are generally still unknown to most musicians. We worked our way through Yn Devotione (8-part, 2 choirs) by Mateo Romero; Dum Essent Discipuli (10-part, 2 choirs) by Tiburtio Massaino; Hodie Completi Sunt (12-part, 3 choirs) by Giulio Osculati; and finally Dum Complerentur (18-part, 3 choirs) by Melchior Vulpius. The music had been prepared by Dr Lewis Jones, a friend of Mark, who has been researching otherwise unknown Spanish and Italian music in particular. Our thanks go to Lewis and to Mark for making it possible for us to study these pieces, which offered points of interest in all parts.
The career paths of some of these musicians were also of interest to the music-historian, and Mark introduced the composers with a brief overview of their lives and compositions; he did not belabour the point as one or two tutors have been inclined to do. (You can have fun looking up the composers, as I do not propose to say more about them here.) And whilst some of us would no doubt love to pursue such historical details, a workshop day is not a lecture/seminar, and Mark showed that he knew that. Indeed, he calmly but confidently let us explore the whole of each piece (or at least as far as we could get through without collapse) before beginning to work on sections, when Mark showed skill in picking up on details of intonation, pronunciation, articulation, voice production, etc., but without making it seem onerous. He wears his knowledge lightly, but it is crystal clear that he knows a lot about vocal technique as well as historical woodwind, and for this kind of workshop day that is a very useful combination of skills. There were plenty of the usual reminders about how to shape sounds, articulate notes, stagger breathing (but not breathe at the ‘wrong’ points!) and suchlike. I suspect that if we were listening we will all have gone away with one or more new tips about such matters too.
Mark is, as of the AGM, our new SWEMF President, a role that has existed in some fora for many years, and has been revived by SWEMF. I hope that this means he will take further SWEMF workshops, but am also sure that he will take an interest in SWEMF activities and liaise with our Chair from time to time about topics relating to early music in the EM fora. And, having mentioned SWEMF chair, Chris Lovell, it falls to me to note the time and effort that he put into the organisation of the day. Although Mark had prepared computerized versions of the music scores and parts, the production of booklets of the pieces for singers, and separate instrumental parts for the instrumentalists fell to Chris, as did the provisional allocation of voices and parts. That the day went so well is a tribute both to Mark and Chris, as well as other ‘background’ helpers who served coffee, moved chairs, and so on. Thanks to all those who helped to make this a very successful workshop; one, indeed, in which we may well have been the first performers to sing and play the Vulpius piece in over 400 years!
Simon Pickard