Tenebrae’s Nigel Short to teach 40-part choral classic to over 500 international singers
Nigel Short, Founder and Artistic Director of award-winning vocal ensemble Tenebrae, will teach all 40 parts of Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis live online to the international singers of SIC - Choir of the Earth.
Disclaimer: Older news articles may refer to Choir of the Earth by our former name, ‘The Self-Isolation Choir’ or ‘SIC’.
Today at 7pm BST, Tenebrae Choir’s award-winning Founder and Artistic Director Nigel Short will launch an online course to teach all 40 parts of Tallis’s Spem in Alium to more than 500 members of SIC - Choir of the Earth.
Spem in Alium (Latin for “Hope in any other”) is a 40-part Renaissance motet by Thomas Tallis, featuring 8 choirs of 5 vocal parts. Tenebrae singers have individually recorded all 40 choral parts, which CotE’s sound engineers have mixed for the course’s learning tracks, using innovative binaural surround sound technology that allows each of the 8 choirs to sound independent of one another.
Nigel will use these spectacular learning tracks to teach 40 live sessions online: one for each vocal part. Additional support will be provided in several extra teaching sessions with SIC CotE’s Musical Director, Ben England BEM. Singers are welcome to attend as many of these sessions as they like, and to submit recordings for as many of the 8 choirs and 5 vocal parts as they wish.
Speaking in anticipation of the course, Nigel says,
I have directed and sung this piece many times over the years and yet it is a piece Tenebrae has yet to record, so it's particularly exciting for me to be involved with SIC – Choir of the Earth as we bring the Tenebrae polish to this iconic piece of music.
Over 450 years after its composition, Thomas Tallis’s Spem in Alium remains at the pinnacle of the choral canon, and it could well be argued that your choral journey is not complete without it.
Starting on Sunday 25th July, I shall teach all 40 parts to over 500 singers from around the world and, by the end of the course, ask them to record their own voice lines and send their audio recordings to us. We shall combine all the voices in the studio for a full concert performance on 28th October - a date for your diary.
This is a new way of learning Spem in Alium and we are excited to welcome singers from all over the world, of any ability, to come together and join us to sing as many or as few of the parts as they wish.
Nigel’s full introduction to the course can be viewed here:
SIC CotE has also partnered with the Thomas Tallis Society for this course, and singers will benefit from a unique score, historical documents and talks by Hugh Keyte on his research into the origins of the motet.
SIC CotE’s Founder, Mark Strachan, observes the fascinating juxtaposition between this ancient masterpiece and the innovative approach being used to teach and perform it, saying,
Thomas Tallis’s Spem in Alium is an ancient piece of music, which we will put together in the most modern of methods, with hundreds of people from all over the Earth learning, recording and performing this work from home. This is Tenebrae and SIC - Choir of the Earth partnering to marry the ancient and the modern. To coin a phrase, "everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed."
The course’s live launch session with Nigel takes place on Sunday 25th July at 19:00 BST and is open to everyone to attend free of charge:
Further information about this project and how to take part is available on SIC - Choir of the Earth’s website at https://www.theselfisolationchoir.com/spem-in-alium.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
The fee for the full course is £55, which includes all necessary resources. The launch session will take place on Sunday 25th July at 19:00 BST. Rehearsals will take place between Monday 26th July and Friday 20th August. All sessions are streamed live but are available for singers to watch as many times as they like at a time that suits them. Choristers can interact with the course director, SIC staff and their fellow singers via the lively chat function, or choose to go ‘full screen’ to fully focus on the teaching.
SIC - Choir of the Earth began life as The Self-Isolation Choir, which was founded in March 2020 as a response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Its aim was to provide comfort and support to people worldwide who were feeling disconnected by bringing them together to sing glorious choral works. The Choir has since attracted over 10,000 international singers to more than 30 choral courses, and received special commendation in the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Inspiration Award 2020.
Further information about SIC - Choir of the Earth’s current, future and previous projects is available at www.theselfisolationchoir.com.
All media queries should be directed to SIC - Choir of the Earth’s Communications Manager at communications@theselfisolationchoir.com.
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