Erasmus concert, Online Ornamentation course II, interviews and videos

Dear Readers,

We are in full preparations for our next performance inspired by Erasmus' In Praise of Folly, which you can read more about below this item.

After the first lesson of the Online Baroque Ornamentation Course (which left everyone wanting more) you can now book dates for the next course!

Finally we have some new videos! There are interviews with Tim Braithwaite (with links to some interesting articles!) and Max Fletcher, a new video about improvisation in regular concerts and finally a look at Robert's own approach to practising improvisation, very specifically focusing on two-part counterpoint inspired by Telemann, practised in Partimenti by Fenaroli!

Have a wonderful continuation of the summer and hope to see you at one of our events,

The Scroll Ensemble -
Robert, Iason & James

In Praise of Folly - Music Theatre Performance

Sunday 7 August we are performing our new programme inspired by Erasmus' "In Praise of Folly". We have taken the Dutch text and present the Goddess of Folly (Soprano Kat Carson) in a flurry of texts, improvisations and intermezzi. These intermezzi are partly based on myths and stories Erasmus references, and partly based on suggestions from the audience: what does madness or folly mean to them.
Below and above you can see our pictures from this evening when were live on national Dutch radio performing excerpts from our show!

We are also curious: what does madness and craziness mean to you ? Share your story with us and we might use it in our performance !!!
You can share your story with us (anonymously) by clicking here.

7 August 15:00 - In Praise of Folly - De Verbeelding, Zeewolde, The Netherlands

Tickets and more information

ONLINE COURSE
PART II (and I )
Ornamentation in the Baroque

For all levels -Beginning of July - Online

The first course was a huge success with everyone wanting to keep going. There are new dates in August where you can either continue or get started!

We dive into baroque ornamentation for a slow movement with Johann Joachim Quantz’s help. Quantz left us an example adagio constructed from basic building blocks. For each building block he notated several ornaments that you can learn by heart and improvise with. These same building blocks can be found everywhere in baroque music!

On the first day of the course we will work on learning options for one building block, and how to fill up intervals, using Quantz’s own Adagio!

Find out more!

Tim Braithwaite Improvisation Interview

Click the image to play the video!

Often the narrative is that classical musicians don't and can't improvise. But, isn't this an old tale? In our latest series we try to interview as many people as we can find and are willing. Feel free to get in touch with us if you'd be willing to be interviewed too! It could even be just one minute and you don't even have to be a professional musician.

In this interview you get to know Tim Braithwaite, who just published his translation of an 18th century French counterpoint treatise on the Earlymusicsources.com website! Tim's website has many interesting posts about improvisation and singing as well! https://www.cacophonyhistoricalsinging.com/

Interview with lutenist, guitarist and contrapuntist Max Fletcher. We are also planning a really fun video about Sighting coming out in the near future! Max dove into contrapuntal improvisation and was fascinating to talk to!

Improvisation in "Regular" Concerts

Improvisation can easily be something we do in a separate part of our musical life. We have this dream that improvisation can be part of how we play music in any concert. In this video Robert describes some ways in which this could happen, and gives examples from his performance practice.

Telemann Fantasias, Partimento and Two-Part Counterpoint

For years I have been obsessed with Telemann's Fantasias for Flute and how I could learn to improvise my own baroque solos inspired by them. Recently I was researching Partimento and how we can use it as melodic instrumentalists. In this video I show my first step in this process. This is one of the approaches I used this month at MentiParti in Basel, where I had a fantastic week teaching AND learning so much from my inspiring co-teachers!