Canada's Only Renaissance Music Summer School has a concert in London this weekend

There is something about Renaissance music that soothes the soul yet at the same time feeding it, and for me at least, it conjures up images of choirs in large Gothic cathedrals with tremendous acoustics.

Recordings abound of music from the Renaissance period with some of the very best produced by The Tallis Scholars, many of which occupy a considerable amount of shelf space in my basement music room.

Canada has not exactly been at the forefront of the Renaissance movement, but we did have able purveyors of the musical form as far back as 1966 when The Huggett Family in Ottawa took their love of the music from that era to concert stages and the recording studio.  They produced a number of LPs, a couple of which I believe I still have in my personal collection, although none that I can see have ever made it to CD.  They for many years conducted workshops and classes for music students studying the musical era until they finally disbanded about 1982.

If you think Canada's contribution to the art form ended there you would be sadly - yet also happily - mistaken.  Enter the Canadian Renaissance Music Summer School (CRMSS), based in London, Ontario.  Now only in its second year, the school is the only Renaissance choral music workshop of its kind in the country.

Directed by internationally-acclaimed baritone and choral workshop leader Greg Skidmore, this year the school has been taking place all this week in London.  The school is aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at undergraduate students, graduates and of course young professional singers.  They are all dedicated to the study and performance of Renaissance polyphonic vocal music of the highest calibre.

Internationally-acknowledged tutors from the worlds of performance and academia are working with the students all this week, immersing themselves in the music the entire time.  There will be both rehearsals and performances all this week, culminating in performances this weekend at several venues, including the magnificent St. Peter's Cathedral Basilica.

Now while the weekday sessions are largely closed affairs, this weekend the public is invited to come out and attend a number of performances, all of which are free of charge.  A retiring collection will be shared between the summer school and St. Peter's Cathedral Basilica.

Throughout the week there have been daily evening services where the choir has sung Vespers, Compline or Evensong as a way of coming together and sharing their scholarly experiences during the day in performances of plainsong and a few simple motets.

Last evening, in fact, public performances began with Choral Evensong at 5:30 at All Saints Church on Hamilton Road in London, and this evening at 5:30 Choral Vespers will be presented at St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel, St. Peter's Seminary.  This will be a rare treat to hear music appropriate to the space not normally open to the public.  The presentation will include a Catholic service entirely in Latin, following the pre-Vatican II rite many of us remember growing up with and found in the Liber Usualis.

The main performance of the weekend comes Saturday evening at 8 pm in the pristine acoustics of St. Peter's on Dufferin Avenue in London with a concert entitled "Musical Transalpina".  This final performance of the week will be a tour de force for choral music enthusiasts like myself to revel in the glory of the human voice in a magnificent and appropriate ecclesiastical setting.

Finally, on Sunday morning at 10 am the choir will perform a large scale a cappella polyphonic Latin mass setting along with accompanying motets at the Sunday morning Eucharist at St. Paul's Cathedral.  There might just be some Gregorian chant propers sung at this service as well.

So if you have no plans on the weekend and don't mind hitting the road for a short jaunt to the lovely city of London, Ontario, you will be richly rewarded with the fruits of the labours of many choral scholars both young and old.  What better way could there be to welcome in the wonderful feeling of spring that is finally in the air as well?

For more information on the school, workshop leaders and individual performances this weekend, go to www.crmss.org or call 1-519-574-4297.

Have a great weekend!