The Art of Warming Up
presented by Jessica Powell Eig

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Coach: Malachai Bandy

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: There’s Something About Mary
This class spotlights music for the Virgin Mary across the long 16th century. While comparing settings of well-known Marian texts (e.g., “Ave Maria,” “Ave maris stella”) by top-notch composers such as Josquin, Palestrina, Verdelot, Byrd, Parsons, Isaac, and Morales, we encounter Mary as the musical scala caelestis: the six-rung ladder of ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la that humanity climbs up to heaven and God climbs down to earth, which scaffolded some of the most breathtaking polyphony ever written.

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Description:For this event, we will read original works composed specifically for our chapter by three local composers: Alex Bozman, Kathryn Carlson, and Sarah Wallin Huff. Each composer will introduce their new composition before we read and explore it together. We’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions, hear directly from the composers about their creative process, and engage with them as we bring their music to life.  

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Class Materials:Please print out your own partbook (click here). If you are not able to print or use a tablet, contact us immediately.

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Bios
Alex Bozman works in multiple disciplines. As a professional musician, he composes, arranges, plays different instruments (cello, violoncello piccolo, fretless bass, fretted strings both bowed and plucked, vocals, and more), and teaches many talented students. The genres he practices and performs the most are Classical Music, Avant Garde Music, Early Music, Latin Music, and Hindustani Classical Music.

Sarah Wallin Huff is a Southern California-based composer, performer, and Cal Poly Pomona faculty member with an MA in Composition. With original works described by critics as "positively buzzing with energy" and "just…gorgeous," her music weaves intricate sonic journeys that performers love to play. From writing the textbook on music technology history to high-energy Irish fiddling, Sarah brings vibrant energy to all she does.

Kathryn Carlson is a Los Angeles-based cellist specializing in contemporary music and composer collaboration. She holds music degrees from UCSB and CSULB, where she performed with new music ensembles and in master classes with The Knights and Juilliard String Quartet. In 2016 she was awarded the ECM Distinguished Performance Award. She performs in musical theater, chamber music, and has recorded with several indie artists including Dante Elephante and Mad Hearts.

Coach: David Morris
Davidhas performed across the U.S., Canada, and Europe on Baroque 'cello, viola da gamba, lirone, and bass violin. He has been a continuo player for the Boston Early Music Festival’s opera productions since 2013 and is a member of Quicksilver and the Bertamo Trio. He is a frequent guest performer on the New York State Early Music Association and Pegasus Early Music series and has performed with Tafelmusik, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seattle’s Pacific MusicWorks and the Mark Morris Dance Group. He has produced operas for the Berkeley Early Music Festival and the SF Early Music Society series and has been a guest instructor in early music performance-practice at Cornell University, Amherst College, Oberlin College, the University of Colorado at Boulder, UC Berkeley and the SF Conservatory of Music. He has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, New Albion, Dorian, Drag City Records, CBC/Radio-Canada, and New Line Cinema.

Location: St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Irvine, CA

Description: In our morning session, we'll focus on the music of Giovanni Cavaccio da Bergamo (1556-1626). On the 400th anniversary of his death, we'll explore some of his four-part works, including contrapuntal fantasias, texted madrigals, and dances. After lunch, we'll separate into smaller consorts and work on classic 4- and 5-part repertoire. 

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Coach: Shanon Zusman

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: Dowland’s Delights: Marking 400 years since the death of John Dowland (1563–1626), this morning’s session celebrates the renowned English composer with selections from his Firste Booke of Songes (1597), Lachrimae, or Seven Tears (1604), and A Pilgrimes Solace (1612).

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Coach: Erik Andersen
Erik performs on all sizes of viola da gamba, including the pardessus de viole, as well as on baroque and modern cello. He also enjoys playing and teaching modern violin and viola. His wide range of experience informs and adds complexity to his musical approach, helping to uncover articulations and colors not so readily found on the single-instrument path. Erik strives to find the voice of each instrument, each composer, and each musical work, sharing the discoveries of those interactions with his audiences. He teaches at the San Francisco Community Music Center and at workshops and events around the country.  

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: Our focus will be the music of Francis Pilkington (c.1570-1638), as we work on three madrigals from his First Booke of Songs or Ayres of 4 parts.

Class Materials: HERE

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Coach: Shanon Zusman and Eva Lymenstull 

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: Traditional consort repertoire

Class Materials: Sight reading

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Coach: Mary Springfels

Mary Springfels is a veteran of the American Early Music Movement, and has been given Lifelong Achievement awards by Early Music America and The Viola da Gamba Society of America. She is a native of Los Angeles, but moved to New York at the age of 21 to join the New York Pro Musica as their viola da gambist. From that time on, Mary has been an active participant in prominent early music ensembles, including the Waverly Concert, Concert Royal, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The Folger Consort (Washington, DC), Ars Lyrica Houston, and the Texas Early Music Project (Austin). Mary directed the Newberry Consort in Chicago for 20 years, during which time the group made a number of critically-acclaimed recordings. She has also been a continuo player for the Chicago Opera Theater, Central City Opera, and the New York City Opera. Currently, she is a co-director of Severall Friends, an early music ensemble based in Santa Fe. Mary and James Keller have collaborated on a lecture course, Orpheus in Music, for Renesan, and Mary has also spoken on The Medieval Tristan for the Santa Fe Opera Guild.

Location: St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Irvine, CA

Description: Franco-Flemish Masters of Polyphony: featuring the music of Josquin and Isaac

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Coach: John Ott

John is a cellist and viola da gamba player based in Irvine, CA. He received a Master’s Degree in Historical Performance on Viola da Gamba from the Longy School in Cambridge, MA, where he studied with Jane Hershey. He has also studied extensively with Mary Springfels. He currently has a large teaching studio, including a few viol players, and performs mainly with his Early Music group, l’Esprit Baroque.

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: Dance Music from the German Courts

We will play Pavanes and Galliards, with some Courants and Allemands thrown in, from viol consorts written by William Brade and his contemporaries in Germany in the early 1600's, including Johann Groh and Johann Hermann Schein.

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Coach: Eva Lymenstull

Location: St. James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: Music of the Fantastic Four: Coprario, Lupo, Ferrabosco, and Gibbons

Many of us likely know Giovanni Coprario, Thomas Lupo, Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger, and Orlando Gibbons as four giants of the viol consort repertoire. But did you know that they all played in a consort together? For our May 31st PlayDay, we’re going to sample a selection of Fantasias, Pavans, and In nomines by these four composers, exploring the ways in which they (presumably) wrote for each other. 

Class Materials: CLICK HERE

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Stairways to Heaven: Hexachords, Ficta, and Pillars (oh my!)

Coach: Malachai Bandy

Location: St James Episcopal Church

Description: Last season, Malachai led a Play Day centered on Fauxbourdon and its many symbolic meanings in works by Dufay, Layolle, Morales, and Monteverdi. By popular demand, this Play Day continues our tour of compositional techniques from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, to bolster your understanding of early-modern counterpoint––both the musical tools themselves and the more symbolic/mystical “stuff” they pack onto the page. Thus, like its earlier installment, this session treats a variety of sacred and secular repertoire, both English and Continental, as a laboratory for examining compositional clues hiding potent symbolism for centuries (right under our noses!), that require some light initiation to decode. Specifically, two of the most foundational and widespread––yet often misunderstood––elements of composition will come into sharper focus: musica ficta (accidentals) and hexachords (six-note scales) and their solmization syllables (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la). After some practical exercises and a scavenger hunt through gorgeous repertoire, these ubiquitous symbolic elements will happily scurry out of hiding, ready to jump off the page to meet you in your future musical endeavors.

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Coach: Shanon Zusman

Location: St James Episcopal Church

Description: Rebirth in Florence, featuring the music of Heinrich Isaac, Philippe Verdelot, and Francesco Corteccia. In today's session, we'll play through madrigals, motets, and carmen by master composers hired to entertain the Medici family in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Florence. Our focus will be matching articulation in polyphonic settings, as well as pitch length/duration in homophonic passages. After lunch, we will break into smaller groups to work on consort repertoire with one-per-part. 

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Order of music is as follows:
Francesco Corteccia (1502-1571)
Madonna io t’aggi amat’ed amo assai
Le vecchie per Invidia sono pazze
Io vorrei pur fuggir crudel amore

Philippe Verdelot (c.1485-c.1530)
Con soave parlar, con dolce accento
Madonna qual certezza
I vostri acuti dardi
O dolce notte
Fuggi, fuggi, cor mio
Se lieta e grata morte 

Heinrich Isaac (c.1450-1517)
Adieu fillette de regnon
E qui le dira
Anima mea

Coach: Eva Lymenstull

Location: St James Episcopal Church

Description: Join us for a relaxed morning of festive music for consort by Holborne, Byrd, Praetorius, Victoria, and more! We'll enjoy a potluck lunch together, then reconvene for smaller group sight-reading in the afternoon. Feel free to bring your favorite dish, dessert, or beverage to share!

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Coach: Malachai Bandy

Location: St James Episcopal Church

Description: Holborne Hospitality: Music for Mixed-Consort Gatherings

As much today as in the year 1599, Anthony Holborne’s wildly popular Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other ſhort Æirs occupies a special place in the bookcases and hearts of viol enthusiasts everywhere: a collection as flexible as it is charming and accessible, viol players today often encounter it as a first gateway to consort playing at all levels of formality, and in mixed consorts, from living room to concert hall. Whether it is your first or 301st time meeting Mr. Holborne, this Play Day promises to both inspire and improve, via useful tips and tidbits on a detailed tour of this well-loved publication. As Holborne’s own advertisement suggests, we should master his music to be better musicians and better social hosts—indeed able to befriend and host any “Viols, Violins, or other Musicall Winde Instruments” who show up at our doorstep.

Note: All levels welcome! Please print (or bring on a tablet) the *full* PDF of your chosen line/voice, which is only ~12 pages double-sided for most lines. Malachai Bandy will coach the morning Holborne session, then the afternoon will be uncoached consort playing.

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Coach: Eva Lymenstull

Location: St James Episcopal Church

Description: Shall we Dance?

For the September playday, we'll spend the morning session exploring dance music for viols, including pavans, galliards, almains, corants, and more! We'll work on bowing patterns and techniques for the rhythmic characteristics idiomatic to each dance, while honing our ensemble playing skills in the process.

In the afternoon, we'll divide into two main groups: consort reading and technique clinic. Eva will lead our usual afternoon informal consort reading, while Malachai will offer a walk-in technique clinic for anyone with specific technical questions (or who wants to learn and work on left or right-hand exercises) in a small group setting. Feel free to move between reading and technique rooms as much as you like!

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Coach: Shanon Zusman

Location: St James Episcopal Church

Description: We will explore the polychoral repertoire of Venice and Vienna, including selections by Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni Gabrieli, Giovanni Priuli, and Pietro Andrea Ziani. In the morning we will work on 17th-century sacred works from St. Mark's and St. Stephen's, playing in different seating arrangements in cori spezzati style. In the afternoon, we will either stay together to play through more works emanating from these cities (doubling parts), or we will break into smaller groups to work on other consort repertoire.

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Coach: Marylin Winkle

Location: St James Episcopal Church

Description: Jewish composers of the 17th century, featuring the music of Salamone Rossi and Leonara Duarte.

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Amor / Amar: Bee St(r)ings from Dufay to Monteverdi

Coach: Malachai Bandy

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: Using sacred and secular works by Dufay, Morales, Monteverdi, Wilbye, and others as a playground, join Malachai for a tour of fauxbourdon and other counterpoint devices symbolizing unions, sweetness, wonderment, and cupid’s stinging arrow—buzzing away, in plain sight, in your favorite repertoire.

Class Materials: Click here

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Coach: Uncoached consort playing

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: We will spend the day reading through our favorite consort repertoire in a few uncoached sessions, breaking for lunch. This is a potluck event, so please bring a dish to share with everyone.

Class Materials: TBD

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Coach: Lisa Terry

Lisa is an avid chamber music performer and soloist on viola da gamba and violoncello. From her home base in New York City, she performs with Parthenia, Dryden Ensemble, Lyra Consort, Pegasus Early Music, and TENET. She is principal cellist and viol soloist with Tempesta di Mare, Philadelphia’s baroque orchestra. Lisa was a founding member of ARTEK, and has performed with the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Juilliard Opera Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Concert Royal. She has appeared to great acclaim as soloist in the Passions of J.S. Bach throughout her career, and she serves the Viola da Gamba Society of America as Past-President. She is often heard in dance bands for Country Dance New York.

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: Follow the phrase: using texted Italian madrigals to help you phrase your line. Private lessons can be arranged while Lisa is visiting Pasadena. Please contact Shanon Zusman (spzusman@gmail.com) if you are interested.

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Coach: Elisabeth Reed

Elisabeth teaches Baroque cello and viola da gamba at the University of California at Berkeley and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is co-director of the Baroque Ensemble. Recent teaching highlights include master classes at the Juilliard School, the Shanghai Conservatory and Middle School, and the Royal Academy of Music. A soloist and chamber musician with Voices of Music, Pacific Musicworks, Archetti, Sound Salon and Wildcat Viols, she has also appeared with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the American Bach Soloists and the Seattle, Portland, Pacific, and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestras.  Elisabeth directs "Voice of the Viol", the renaissance viola da gamba ensemble of Voices of Music.  She can be heard on the Virgin Classics, Naxos, Focus, Plectra, and Magnatunes recording labels and has many HD videos on the Voices of Music Youtube channel. She is a Guild-certified practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method™ of Awareness Through Movement ™ with a particular interest in working with musicians and performers.  

Location: St James Episcopal Church

Description: Elisabeth will present some exercises based on the Feldenkrais Method™ of Awareness Through Movement™ to help you all feel more physically comfortable playing the viol. We will also work through a few of the exercises The Natural Violist by Thomas Baeté together and then apply the principles and concepts from the book to uncomplicated, mostly homophonic music.
*Private lessons can be arranged while Elisabeth is visiting Pasadena. Please contact Shanon Zusman (spzusman@gmail.com) if you are interested.

Class Materials: Click here

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Coach: Shanon Zusman

Location: St. James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena

Description: Challenging Rhythms: we'll spend our first period working on the advanced rhythmic patterns in Holborne's dance repertoire. We'll tackle syncopated rhythms and other challenging patterns in his pavanes, galliards, and allemandes while maintaining a steady pulse. For the second and third periods, we'll break into small groups with additional coaching support from Malachai Bandy.

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Coach: Eva Lymenstull

Location: Pomona College, Thatcher Music Building, 340 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711

Free parking is available on College Ave. and surrounding streets, and there are several parking lots (a bit farther from the street parking, still within two blocks) with free visitor parking as well. We’ll be in the rehearsal room called “Bryant,” with its own entrance to the building, on the north side. Malachai will be there to greet everyone, and for anyone with mobility concerns, there are not any steps going into Bryant from that entrance.

Description: The Byrds and the Bees: a Mayday Playday. Join us Saturday May 6th for SoCal Viols' first playday at Pomona College in Claremont! We'll be exploring music that celebrates spring and everything pastoral, including madrigals, songs, and favorites from the viol consort repertoire, by Byrd, Tompkins, Wilbye, Morley, and more. Come enjoy a day of delightful consort music, surrounded by Pomona College's beautiful green spaces and blooming flowers.

Class Materials: CLICK HERE

Coach: Malachai Bandy

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: Joint event with Los Angeles Baroque. The morning session (10am - 12pm) will be a coached viol consort with Malachai Bandy. The afternoon (1pm - 5pm) will be Big Band - which viols are welcome to join - directed by Lindsey Strand-Polyak.

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Coach: Shanon Zusman

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA 91030

Description: In our morning sessions, we will focus on building ensemble skills. We will work especially on these areas: intonation/tuning, breathing as a consort, rhythmic precision and bow direction, unity in articulation and dynamics, and general interpretation. We will spend some time as a class analyzing the scores and discussing possibilities and then try a few of our ideas out as we play with intention. Works by Bach, Praetorius, Josquin, Rore, and Gibbons will be featured.

Class Materials: Download here

Coach: Malachai Bandy

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA 91030

Description: We invite everyone to bring a potluck dish for an early holiday celebration at lunch. We will have a coached morning session with Malachai Bandy, followed by small consorts in the afternoon.

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Coach: Julie Jeffrey

Location: Santa Monica College, Music Building, 1310 11st St., Santa Monica, CA 90401.
Note: Parking is free, and masks are required indoors.

Description: For our morning session I would like to share two of my current viol-related obsessions, one of which centers on repertoire, and one of which is all about technique.

For starters, we will look at some sixteenth-century settings of Dido’s lament, Dulces exuviae. Lifted from Virgil’s Aeneid, this text, spoken by Dido at the moment of her death, was a favorite with composers throughout the 16th century, including Josquin, Ghiselin, Orto, Arcadelt, Willaert, Lassus, and Handl, among others. We will play through a few of these gorgeous pieces as a warm-up for the second portion of the session, in which we shall move on to some more focused technical work.

My technique topic of the day: tips and tricks for how to get better at fast notes! Leaping forward into the 17th-century, we will explore ways to build courage and facility when faced with those sixteenth-note passages that inevitably pop up when you least expect them, and we will put it all to practice in a bracing 3-part fantasia by William Young.

Julie Jeffrey has been playing the viol since 1976. She has performed throughout the U.S., in Canada, Mexico, Europe and Australia, and teaches privately and at workshops in the U.S. and abroad. Ms. Jeffrey is a founding member of Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, Wildcat Viols, Antic Faces, and The Barefoot All-Stars, and she embodies half of the viol duo Hallifax & Jeffrey. Ms. Jeffrey is co-founder and co-director of Barefoot Chamber Concerts, and has served on the board of directors of The Viola da Gamba Society of America, The Pacifica Viola da Gamba Society, and The San Francisco Early Music Society.

Class Materials: Click here

Coaches: Shanon Zusman, Malachai Bandy

Location: St James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: We'll spend the day in small ensembles, one-per-part, joined by Shanon or Malachai as our coach, rotating groups and coaches in three periods. Consorts will be pre-selected and music distributed one week in advance. Our focus will be on improving ensemble playing, with an emphasis on articulation, dynamics, and phrasing. *Please note there is a strict registration deadline of June 11, so we can put the groups together and carefully select the best repertoire for the day in advance. We need to know how many coaches to have so each group will have a coach.

Shanon Zusman holds a doctorate in Early Music Performance from the USC Thornton School of Music, where he studied Baroque double bass and viola da gamba with James Tyler…Read more.

Malachai Komanoff Bandy graduated cum laude with Distinction in Research and Creative Work from Rice University's Shepherd School of Music with double bass and music history degrees…Read more.

Class Materials: TBD

Coach: Taylor Smith

Location: Virtual and In-Person at Cuyamaca College, El Cajon, CA (click here for map).

Description: Improvising and Listening Like A Real Renaissancer

Quite often, we look at books like Ortiz’s Trattado de Glosas or Simpson’s The Division Viol as sources of interesting and fun music, which they are. But, this misses a big part of why these books exist; they were written as how-to manuals on improvisation. So, let’s try it! Also, we will explore another side of music from the 16th and 17th centuries: the glorious writing of composers like Palestrina, Lassus, and Victoria. Nearly everything we play in consort settings has its roots there, and learning to listen to that style makes consort music come alive in ways we may not have experienced before.

Please note: This is a hybrid in-person/virtual playday. Select your preference at registration.

Class Materials: Click here

Coach: Eva Lymenstull

Location: St. James Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, CA

Description: In the morning coached session, we will read through madrigals and consort songs to explore the vocal side of the viol. We will have the option to break into smaller consort groups for the afternoon session.

Eva Lymenstull enjoys a diverse international career as a soloist, chamber musician, continuo player and orchestral musician, playing baroque cello and viola da gamba. She has performed as concerto soloist and principal cellist with Lyra Baroque Orchestra, guest principal with Atlanta Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, and Musica Angelica, and has also appeared with Tafelmusik, Voices of Music, Tesserae, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Holland Baroque. The winner of the 2017 Voices of Music Bach Competition, she has performed at the Carmel Bach Festival, the Utrecht, Boston, and Berkeley Fringe Festivals, and on the Gotham Early Music and Academy of Early Music series. In addition to performing, she teaches baroque cello and viol as a guest artist at the University of Michigan. She holds degrees from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Rice University, University of Michigan, and a doctorate in historical performance practice from Case Western Reserve University.

Class Materials: Click here