Public workshop

Perfect, Powerful Palestrina!

Saturday, 26 July 2025

2:00pm to 7:30pm

St Paul's West Street, Brighton, BN1 2RE

Registration is not yet open.

The cost of the workshop is £20 (£10 for full time students, people aged under 25, or those in receipt of Universal Credit or Pension Credit). Payment can be made online, by following a link that will be generated after you've submitted the registration form.

Information about the workshop

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born 500 years ago this year. What better opportunity to spend some time getting to know the surprising breadth of his style? Palestrina is of course well known for pieces such as the motets Tu es Petrus, Sicut cervus, and his sublime Missa Brevis, but there is much more to discover. We'll look into his lesser-known settings of poetry by Petrarch, and some of his settings from the biblical Song of Songs in which Palestrina takes great pleasure in setting that extraordinary love poetry!

From beautiful miniatures (a ravishing setting of Ave Maria) to more substantial pieces (we'll have a look at his Stabat mater if time allows), his output is much more varied than we might think, yet all of it contains that characteristic 'Palestrina Perfection' that was unrivalled until the likes of Bach and Mozart later had a go...

Join us for an afternoon and evening singing some extraordinarily beautiful Renaissance polyphony written by the man who pretty much invented the style!

Our Musical Director Greg Skidmore is one of the UK’s leading Renaissance music performers, regularly appearing with groups such as The Tallis Scholars and I Fagiolini on stages throughout the UK and around the world. He also has toured and recorded with Alamire, The Sixteen, Gabrieli Consort, and many other groups, as well as having been a member of the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. He is Founder and Artistic Director of The Canadian Renaissance Music Summer Schools in his native Canada and is Director of The Lacock Scholars, one of the UK’s leading amateur consorts specialising in Renaissance music.