Just two months to MMitD 2024!
Hello everyone and many apologies for the delay getting this newsletter out. It’s been such a busy spring and summer here! but I’m pleased to say everything is on course for this year’s festival at Bolton Castle. This newsletter mainly focuses on an exciting poll, information about this year’s festival CD (which is amazing by the way), and some updates on this year’s festival.
Help Choose a Song for David Yardley
Those of you at the Online Festival in March will remember that the brilliant David Yardley is returning to MMitD this year. David is a critically-acclaimed composer and performer, whose music is influenced by the authentic medieval music he has immersed himself in for years. He particularly likes to take medieval songs for which no music has survived and recreate a musical setting, and you can find out more about his work here. At this year’s MMitD, David is performing with Gaita in their ‘Roman de Fauvel’ concert, performing solo in his own Chamber Concert, and also giving a talk on how he goes about recreating medieval music.
Which is where you come in… David has come up with the magnificent idea of asking you to choose a song for him to focus on and compose new music for. He has chosen four songs-without-music by women trouveres, and we are polling to see which one you, the MMitD audience, would like him to recreate and sing as part of his MMitD appearance this year.
The four songs are:
A - Par maintes fois avrai esteit requise, a plainte (lament) by the Duchess of Lorraine
B - Cant voi l’aube dou jor venir, an anonymous aube, or dawn song
C - Que ferai je, dame de la Chaucie, a jeu-partie or debate song by Sainte des Prez and the Dame de la Chaucie
D - Entre moi et mon amin, another anonymous dawn song
All the lyrics and translations of the four songs can be found here, to help you make your choice.
All you need to do is choose A, B, C or D in our poll below - and David will take it from there.
BUT!!!! You need to reply by 1800 BST on Friday 19th July. Super important!!!
Every year we produce a Festival CD, featuring many of the artists performing at this year’s festival. It’s built into an impressive collection over the years -this is our eighth festival CD.
This year, the festival CD LUDUS! features:
Bisarr
David Yardley
Edward Foster
Eva Moreda
Gaita
Joglaresa
Juliette Primrose
Marco Cannavo
Steve Tyler
Trouvere
As usual, we are crowdfunding to fund the production of the CD, so do take a look at our Kickstarter page and support us if you can. If you aren’t sure how this kind of crowdfunding works, you basically pledge to give some money - anything from £1 to as much as you like! - and in return you can get various rewards. One such reward is of course this year’s LUDUS! CD, but you can also get copies of the back catalogue of festival CDs, tune books, and our gorgeous pewter badges. The various album collections are also available in digital form.
It’s Party Time!
As you know, our theme at this year’s festival is LUDUS. It is the Latin word for ‘play’, and so this year we are celebrating creativity and mirth along with a dash of magic and mystery (and loads of music).
Our poster boy for this year is the inimitable David Thomson who regularly dances at MMitD with Gaita, and last year turned up to the Sunday night party as a magnificent Green Man. This got us thinking…. so this year the last night party is going to have a fancy dress option. You are invited to attend dressed to the theme of Medieval Ludus - so green men (and women), jesters, creations inspired by medieval marginalia, jesters, masked mummers all welcome. Small but significant prizes may well be available!
(NB - dressing up is NOT compulsory, so don’t worry if it is not your thing! Paul is already expressing reservations…!)
And Finally….
Don’t forget that the box office for this year’s festival is now open, and if you are thinking of coming along you are well advised to book your Festival Pass and/or evening concert tickets as soon as possible. There is still availability on most elements of the programme, but here’s a quick summary.
there’s still plenty of room for tent camping, but caravans, motorhomes and campers should book sooner rather than later to be sure of a place
there are three Glamping tents still available (more information on glamping at the festival here)
both evening concerts are now 75% full, so get in there if you want to be sure of a seat. Remember - evening concerts are NOT included in the Festival Pass
there are ten places left on the Study Day with Leah Stuttard
all 1-2-1 tuition is filling up fast, so if you want to book an hour with your medieval music hero don’t leave it too late
almost all workshops have some places left EXCEPT Beginner Bagpipe, Beginner Recorder and Singing with Guido, which are all now full. Frame Drumming and Build Your Own Estampie have only a couple of places remaining.
And there is still plenty of spaces left for the Sunday night party!
That’s all for now, but of course just get in touch if you have any questions. At this time of year I spend a lot of time in minstrel guise with my phone turned off! so email is best if you want to be sure of reaching me.
All the best!
Gill
Gill Page
Director
Medieval Music in the Dales
medievalmusicinthedales.org
medievalmusicinthedales@gmail.com
