And the beat goes on…..

Oak Ridge HS is home to the only program I know with a viol consort that lives within the orchestra program. The students take the actual class and get credit for it. The class meets for 90 minutes every other day and this year this program continues with 8 new students. There are 4 trebles, 2 tenors and 2 basses participating for the 2018-19 School Year. The class meets from 7:20-8:57…..i know its early but we are doing Early Music early in the morning!!

We have been at it now for about a month and the students are enjoying it very much. We started with the Martha Bishop book to get acquainted with the clefs and geography of the fingerboard. Once they get familiar with the notes and holding the bow in a new peculiar way we launch into the Pazzamesso Method book by Julie Elhard and learn polyphony!

We have many plans for this year and I would like to share what we currently have planned.

They will continue to work with Sarah Mead in the fall with some workshops after school which are being sponsored by Viols of Houston, while in December Parthenia Viol Consort is coming to Houston for a concert presented by Houston Early Music and they also want to do a workshop with the students. In January we are working with Josh Keller, and in March thanks to an invitation from Mu Phi Epsilon Dallas Alumni Chapter to perform in Dallas on March 3.

 

Our big project for this year will be to take this ensemble to perform at Boston Early Music Festival!!!!

A couple of years ago we took a group and we want to return and put together a joint concert with Les Touches and Aquila di Guerra. More news and updates will be given in Spring!

 

Thank for all the support from the Viola da Gamba Society of America for continuing to allow us the use of the viols to keep this program going!

 

More info on this group can be available on our website: https://www.lestouches.org/outreach

 

Advertisement