Baroque Buffet

This popular course invites instrumentalists to dive into the fascinating world of Baroque performance practice. Led by three experienced tutors; Julia Bishop, Sophie Middleditch and David Pollock who specialise in strings, wind, and keyboard, you’ll discover the style, sound, and spirit that makes Baroque music so endlessly rewarding to play. Together you’ll explore a rich variety of Baroque repertoire written for different combinations of strings and wind instruments, exploring the elegance of the French style, the lyricism of Italian, and the drama of German Baroque music. Along the way, you’ll deepen your understanding of rhetoric, gesture, articulation, and ornamentation - and how these ideas bring the music vividly to life on modern instruments.

By the end of the course you will: Gain confidence in your playing and pick up a range of helpful skills and techniques to bring Baroque music to life. Develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for the range and variety of the Baroque period in music Play with other like minded musicians in a chamber orchestra and in smaller ensembles, developing your ensemble skills.

We’ll work in a mix of tutti orchestral sessions and smaller sectional ensembles, with a chance for individual instrumental coaching. The afternoons will be free for you to enjoy informal chamber music-making together with your fellow course members. In a change from recent years, this course will focus entirely on orchestral playing. We will be playing at A=440.

We are looking for players of the following instruments, with good sight-reading ability and rhythm: violin, viola, cello, flute, recorder, oboe, bassoon and keyboard. We may be able to accommodate other instruments - please check with us before you book. For keyboard players, some knowledge of figured bass is needed as usually there are no piano reductions available in this repertoire.

No preparation is needed - we will provide all the music for you at the start of the course. We’ll let you know some of the pieces we’ll be working on nearer to the time, in case you’d like to familiarise yourself with them but we will provide hard copies during the course. There will be some sight-reading required of other pieces of repertoire not shared in advance. Please bring your instruments with you, as well as any Baroque bows, if you have them.