Professor Eugeen Liven d’Abelardo, international chant expert and premier choral conductor, leads an intensive course in the study and singing of Gregorian Chant.
Women’s group chant conductor, Antanina Kalechyts
Vocal warmups and individual voice training by tenor, Christopher Fülling
Working language of the workshop is English (Dutch, German, Italian, French, & Russian available)
Housing, dining, and some rehearsals at the Guest House of the Art Monastery.
Rehearsals and nightly Compline in the monasteries and churches of Calvi dell’Umbria and surrounding sites.
Visit to two working monasteries where the chant offices are still sung: Monte Oliveto and Sant’Antimo
Closing concerts and vespers in Orvieto and Calvi.
The focus of the workshop will be the SINGING of Gregorian chant. Whereas most chant is taught by musicologists, Professor d’Abelardo was an internationally known orchestral and opera conductor and composer before devoting his life to the study and performance of Gregorian chant. Thus in addition to musicological detail, he brings an innate understanding of choral voices and a virtuosic ability to bring alive this liturgical music as it would have been sung at the apex of its development a millennium ago. His professional ensemble Hartkeriana’s acclaimed recordings and international performances have done just that with the St. Gall codices ascribed to the 11th-C monk Hartker.
In this workshop, chanters of all abilities and experience levels will join professional singers and experienced chanters (much like the mix of skills in a Medieval monastery) to immerse themselves in the study and performance of this repertoire. The workshop will cover each of the necessary aspects to experience the fullness of this music.
- MUSICOLOGY: Each day will include the study of Gregorian chant neums and stylistic performance technique as applied to the repertoire of the monastic office (psalmody, antiphons, responsories, etc.).
- MEN’S & WOMEN’S GROUPS: In the afternoons the men and women will meet separately to explore this more traditional sound world and choral experience. These groups will perform separately and together in the public concerts and liturgies.
- VOICE TRAINING: morning vocal warmups and individual voice lessons will provide insight and confidence to your personal vocal performance.
- CONTEXT: Throughout the week there will be lectures on history, St.Gallen notation, form development, modality, and the role of chant in monastic life. Also included will be excursions to nearby monasteries where Gregorian Chant is still performed.
- CONTEMPLATION: After the evening meal and an optional time for meditation, we will sing the day-closing office of Compline in the breathtaking coro of the monastery, where the cloistered nuns celebrated the monastic offices for centuries.
- BONUS: Course participants may stay an extra day (May 10) to join the Vespers for S. Pancrazio that will open the three-day patron saint festival of the town of Calvi.
€900* per participant includes room and board (based on twin share accommodations at the Casale Santa Brigida)** and the program detailed above. Scholarships available.***
Our daily itinerary will be:
8.00 breakfast
9.00 vocal warm up w/Christopher
9.45 First session: Gregorian chant neum reading and singing
10.45 coffee break
11.00-12.00 Second session: history, theory, topics
12.30 lunch & siesta
15.00 Third session: Repertoire preparation
16.15 tea break
16.30 Fourth session: Repertoire preparation
Afterwards, private study in small groups (psalmody), and private voice lessons can be scheduled with Christopher
free time
19.30 dinner
21:00 sometimes, public Compline in the coro of the monastery
*transportation to/from Italy is not included. Discounts available for people who bring or rent their own car.
**Single room supplement of €365
*** Scholarships available for professional musicians and for music and theology students with valid student ID. To apply for scholarships send CV to christopher AT artmonastery.org .
Music & Chant: May 10-13. Open to professional musicians who take part in the chant course, the Art Monastery will be conducting a three day intensive immediately following the chant workshop, to deconstruct the musical and conceptual material covered in the week before, using voice, instruments, and electronics. The intensive will be led by Professor Thomas Bickley, a leading new music interpreter who specializes in early and liturgical sources. It will culminate in a concert in Rome and a Symposium at the Art Monastery.
Booking and other inquiries to mia AT artmonastery.org
BIOGRAPHIES:
Eugeen Liven d’Abelardo (course leader): Belgian conductor & composer living in Amsterdam.
Eugeen Liven d’Abelardo was born in Knokke aan Zee, Belgium in 1950. He received his musical education (organ, counterpoint & fugue) at the Royal Music Conservatories of Ghent and Brussels. In postgraduate studies, he specialized in both choral and orchestra conducting at the Music high school Köln and contemporary music in Basil, Stockholm and Rome. A major influence on Eugeen were his encounters with the legendary conductor Sergiù Celibidache, while studying Phenomenology of music both in Munich and Mainz. After his studies he became a conductor with the BRT-Brussels-orchestras and the Opera of Flanders in Ghent. In 1976 he founded the Flemish Mobile Ensemble, a specialized group for contemporary music and theatre. As a composer, he has been awarded various international prizes for choral composition. Living in the Netherlands, since 1987, he has been the music director of several choral groups. He specializes – returning to the love of his youth – in Gregorian Chant, directing the Schola Cantorum Amsterdam (weekly vespers in St.Nikolas Amsterdam), the Schola Gregoriana Hilversum and the professional ensemble Hartkeriana for recordings and festivals. From October 2005 he was appointed Guest Professor Gregorian Chant at the Graz University in Austria. In 2009 he was invited to give the keynote address at the 10th Gregorian Chant Festival in Watou, Belgium, the triennial chant conclave that is, perhaps, the worlds largest and most significant Gregorian chant gathering.
Antanina Kalechyts (women’s group conductor) Russian choir conductor and organist in Graz. Degrees from the Michail Glinka Conservatory in piano and organ, winning the International Organ competition in St. Petersburg and prizes at competitions in Zürich and Graz. She performs as organist and choir director at concerts from Belarus to Switzerland. Since 2003 then, she has studied sacred music and organ at the Univeristy of Graz, where she studied Gregorian chant with Professors Franz Karl Prassl and Eugeen Liven d’Abelardo. As director of the Graz women’s Gregorianischer Schola, she has conducted chant concerts through out Europe.
Christopher Fülling (vocal coach) American tenor and theatre director at the Art Monastery in Italy. BA in anthropology from Princeton University, MFA in voice performance and opera directing from California Institute of the Arts. He moved to Europe in 1999 on a Beebe Foundation Fellowship to study Baroque singing with Max van Egmond and Peter Kooy. Since then he has sung opera, oratorio, and Gregorian chant through out Europe and the US, singing with Professor d’Abelardo’s Schola Cantorum Amsterdam and Harketiana since 2000. As a theatre director he specializes in the intersection between ritual, music, and theatre: whether reconstructing a specific historical liturgy or creating new, experimental works of musical and ritual theatre.
