The parody Masses of Palestrina - a workshop day for singers for Southern Early Music Forum

Name: The parody Masses of Palestrina - a workshop day for singers for Southern Early Music Forum
Start: 2025-11-15T10:30:00+00:00
End: 2025-11-15T17:00:00+00:00
Location: Challock Village Hall

Schedule

Sat Nov 15 2025 at 10:30 am to 05:00 pm

UTC+00:00

Location

Challock Village Hall | Ashford, EN

* Booking now open at https://semf.org.uk *
A one-day workshop for singers in Challock, east Kent, exploring the genius of Palestrina's settings of the Mass.
This year the early music world has been celebrating the 500th anniversary of Palestrina’s birth. An astonishingly productive composer, he wrote over a hundred settings of the Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, etc.), many of which remain unheard and unrecorded today.
For this workshop, we will explore Palestrina’s supreme mastery in the so-called ‘parody’ Mass genre. In this type of setting, the composer bases their Mass on a pre-existing polyphonic model — generally a motet or chanson – expanding and rhapsodising on the source material in each ‘movement’.
This should be a harmonious, varied and enjoyable day of singing that sheds light on some of Palestrina’s loveliest Mass settings.
Final repertoire choices depend on the forces signing up so strong singers (especially tenors) are encouraged to sign up early so that the desired Masses can be included.
Anticipated repertoire:
It is hoped to include a movement from some or all of these Masses, along with the polyphonic source motet or chanson:
O sacrum convivium,
Sicut lilium
O magnum mysterium
Je suis deshéritée
Forum members £19, non-members £25, under-26s £9