NE Early Music Forum

Activities

NEEMF is an association of early music makers (Reg. charity No.326282). Some members prefer the mediaeval, the renaissance, the baroque and some the early classical periods.

NEEMF has roughly 175 members (of whom a dozen or so are from Teesside) and they keep in touch via a quartlerly newsletter. Workshops are held at various places (from, say, Durham to Beverley) in the North East at almost monthly intervals. Some of these are just for singers, some for string players, or winds, some are mixed.

NEEMF is just one of the ten area fora throughout Britain. The National Early Music Forum also publishes a yearbook of all early music makers in the UK.

Web-site

http://www.neemf.org.uk

Membership

For more details visit the NEEMF website above, or contact the local Committee member Marion Bolton (01642-817097)

MUSIC FROM LUTHERAN GERMANY - by Bach and Praetorius

Saturday 26^th May 2007 10am for 10.30am till 4.30pm at the Village Hall, Low Row, Swaledale, DL11 6NA

A workshop for voices, (including soloists), recorders, violins, cellos, viols, and sackbuts
Tutor: Prof. John Butt - Glasgow University

Fees for the day: Standard £15 Student (under 26)/state-only pensioners/unemployed £10

(Light refreshments - tea, coffee, biscuits - will be provided, but please bring a packed lunch unless you want to eat out at lunchtime. The Punch Bowl Inn is very busy on Saturdays, but would accept orders up to the day before 01748 886233).

If you would like to take part, please contact Marion Bolton, NEEMF, 44 Church Lane, Acklam,
MIDDLESBROUGH, TS5 7EB Tel: 01642 817097
- or download a copy of the application form from http://www.neemf.org.uk/ by Sat. 19^th May 07.

Michael Praetorious, Puer natus est in Bethlehem and Vater Unser

These magnificent settings show the early absorption of the latest Italian style by Lutheran Germany. They have everything of the sonic grandeur of the best works of Gabrieli and Monteverdi coupled with a rhetorical force and lyricism that is typical of the German Baroque. They also allow for many varieties of scoring and performance approach thus making them suitable for a broad range of players and singers (improvised ornamentation is a must for the more advanced participants!).

J.S. Bach - Cantata 106, Gottes Zeit

This early masterpiece by Bach is clearly a funeral cantata, but one with a difference: the music takes us from the utmost grief at the inevitability of God's time, yet progressively turns towards hope and joy, culminating in a music that sounds almost unashamedly secular. This is a great opportunity for experimenting with expressive devices current around 1700, different approaches to text and some wonderful writing for recorders and violas da gamba.

Pitch will be A=440