by Laura Osterlund
Published March 3, 2025
Participatory workshops by a range of ensembles are reimagining how to engage audiences. All for the fun of it.
Muckabouts and Similar Events are Investments in a Future for Medieval and Renaissance Music
The Brownhoist is a towering red brick building from the Gilded Age, located east of downtown Cleveland, between the neighborhoods of St. Clair-Superior and industrial Asiatown. Refashioned as a community space for local creatives, it offers studios and common areas for artists to rent. On a rainy November day, I found my way into this revived historic space following the signs posted by Trobár, a Medieval-music ensemble that has been hosting free local learning events in northeastern Ohio since 2022.
With the evocative name MuckAbouts, Trobár’s hybrid study-participate-celebrate events were designed to introduce Medieval music in the “atmosphere of a nerdy party” to community members of various skills and from all walks of life. MuckAbouts have branched out into topics like Medieval and Renaissance notation, Renaissance sight-singing, and the roots of the Sacred Harp tradition in America.
The next MuckAbout will be Monday, March 17, devoted to Byzantine Chant, which the group describes as Gregorian chant’s lesser-known eastern cousin. Led by a Greek Orthodox cantor, the “fun, hands-on, collaborative” session promises to teach you how to sing a simple hymn from Byzantine notation. (To get started, read EMA’s article I psaltikí téchni – Discovering Byzantine Chant.)
Trobár’s Muckabouts are just one of a growing sort of participatory events across North America. Through the Medieval and early modern periods, music was largely participatory and appreciated from within by those making it. Realizing this, a number of today’s vocal ensembles specializing in Renaissance music have organized workshops where people are invited to sing along. Culomba, Bella Voce, the Byrd Ensemble, and the Canadian Renaissance Music Summer Schools have put their own spin on this kind of professional-amateur gathering. Inviting others to make music alongside them gives each ensemble an opportunity to share their process of preparing for a concert. It can foster a greater understanding and appreciation of the music they perform.
‘A Fantasy Camp for Superfans’
On that rainy November day, the event focused on dances in the Gresley Manuscript, known as the earliest extant source of English dance choreographies, circa 1500. It was the second dance-and-music MuckAbout that Trobár had hosted, in response to the popularity of their first, held last summer.
Passing by a welcome table stacked with copies of Trobár’s first album, we entered the Brownhoist’s old auditorium with wooden floors. I joined some 16 other people, including Trobár vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Elena Mullins Bailey, teaching the dance class, and Jonathan Goya, the ensemble’s general manager, leading the band on Baroque violin. What struck me immediately was the range of ages among the attendees, including three young boys — each playing a ukulele. Their mother, standing by as an observer, related that she learned about the MuckAbout through social media. She thought it would be a great opportunity to introduce her sons to new, unfamiliar music. They decided to give it a try.
My impromptu dance partner, a woman in her 20s, was a recent Kent State University graduate who had studied dance. Two middle-aged women said they had attended Trobár’s October main-stage concert — a program inspired by Christine de Pizan’s poetry — and had also come out to for the ensemble’s Renaissance singing event in conjunction with that concert.
As an ensemble, Trobár describes itself as a small band of voices and instruments dedicated to bringing Medieval music to modern audiences. Mullins Bailey, our dance instructor for the day, attests that the ensemble had always looked to connect with audience members outside of concerts. Past endeavors include an adaptation of the Medieval Asinarius tale (a.k.a. “The Donkey Tale”) for grades K-3. In their podcast, Trobár Talks, co-founders Mullins Bailey, Allison Monroe, and (recently departed) Karin Weston chat about sundry Medieval topics, as performers, scholars, and enthusiasts. Yearning for an even more palpable sense of connection with their audiences, the trio dreamed up the MuckAbouts. Over the past few seasons, Trobár has hosted 10 such sessions, as well as similar workshops with guest instructors exploring topics like shape note singing, Ukrainian folk song traditions, and the music of Hildegard von Bingen. These events and workshops — promoted on Trobár’s website, the online Cleveland Arts Events, and on Facebook — cost just a $5 suggested donation.
At the MuckAbout, I was impressed by the high-caliber teaching offered at minimal price by instructors who were specialists in their field, turning historical performance practice into a living musical tradition. They are turning out to be a viable investments for the future.
In Massachusetts, Culomba, a professional vocal ensemble specializing in close-harmony folk singing, has presented numerous workshops in conjunction with their concert performances. Acclaimed mezzo-soprano and Culomba co-founder Sophie Michaux reflected on a couple of singing workshops she helped organize in Cambridge and Northampton during the past season, noting that participants came to appreciate the music better when they themselves were able to join in making it. “When one actually sings as part of the harmony, uses a particular vocal color, experiences the rhythms from within, mouths the words in the foreign language, it makes for a fuller experience of the music.” Michaux mentioned that Culomba was getting ready to lead workshops in Vancouver at the SongRoots Polyphony Festival. This June, members of Culomba will help lead the “SongRoutes” Corsica workshop along with traditional Corsican musicians.
Michaux believes that variety is key to keeping workshops interesting. For the workshops, Culomba — the name means “dove” in Corsican — draws from its own broad concert repertoire, including music from Georgia, the Balkans, and Ukraine, as well as early European polyphony and American folk traditions. Music at the workshops is often taught by ear, with the supplementary aid of a word-sheet or score. Members of Culomba sing along on each part, so that participants are supported with the help of experienced professional voices. Michaux hopes that the introduction participants receive at the workshops will inspire them to dig deeper into these singing traditions and experience them firsthand.
Culomba has received Massachusetts’ Local Cultural Council grants to present some of their past singing workshops. Ensuring that no one is prevented from participating due to lack of funds, they have found that the workshops still largely pay for themselves. By choosing venues where workshops can be held in the same space before the concert, they keep costs low. A sliding scale is offered to participants, as well as a discount to attend both the workshop and concert. Participants are excited to pay for both the concert and the workshop, and those who weren’t planning to attend the concert often stay. To showcase the success of their workshops, Culomba has even invited workshop participants to join them on stage during concerts.
In Chicago, chamber choir Bella Voce is hosting a Polyphony Camp as part of their current season — the first time such a workshop will be offered in two decades. Artistic Director Andrew Lewis related that his predecessor, Anne Heider, had first led informal gatherings of Renaissance singing. During the pandemic, Lewis attempted to reach audiences through a video lecture series called A Musical Journey, but the idea of hosting an in-person gathering remained on his mind. He wanted to do more by inviting audiences into the special experience singers had inside of the music. “Many of our audience have an intellectual and aesthetic thirst for this kind of music. Understanding how it works enriches their understanding. Singing it themselves will add an embodied element — they will feel the music in a new way and hear it perhaps as they have never done before — from within the ensemble.”
Betsy Hoats, Bella Voce’s managing director, recalled a fundraiser at the beginning of the previous season as another impetus for Polyphony Camp. She remembers sheet music being distributed to attendees, who stood in a big circle and sang a few Renaissance greatest hits, along with members of Bella Voce. After the event, many attendees remarked that the singing had been their favorite activity and that they would be willing to invest in the opportunity to sing again in the future. Hoats and Lewis agreed that it would be a great idea to host a Bella Voce “fantasy camp for superfans.” Much to their surprise, the people who have signed up for Polyphony Camp are mostly new to Bella Voce.
Many attendees remarked that the singing had been their favorite activity and that they would be willing to invest in the opportunity to sing again in the future.
The Byrd Ensemble, based in Seattle, has offered an intensive Renaissance course for pre-professional singers since 2017. Artistic Director Markdavin Obenza and Course Manager Margaret Obenza attended several Tallis Scholar Summer School courses in the early 2000s before launching their own International Renaissance Course, in 2017, in southwestern France. With the exception of the pandemic years, the course has been held annually at different idyllic locations throughout Europe.
Obenza believes that the most attractive feature of the courses is how the singers immerse themselves in the sort of historic spaces — castles, palaces, churches — where the music would have been performed centuries ago. For their 2022 course, dedicated to the music of Palestrina, participants gathered at a palace in the Italian countryside near the town of Petritoli. They prepared a concert to be performed at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, where Palestrina himself worked. Obenza recalls that the bells of the cathedral, which rang every 15 minutes, were paused for the performance. “Nothing — no recording — can better replicate what his music sounded like in that space better than actually singing there yourself.”
Beyond tutti rehearsals with members of the Byrd Ensemble for the culminating concert, daytimes during the International Renaissance Course are occupied by small ensemble rehearsals with the goal of singing prepared pieces for one another. Bringing together singers of different musical backgrounds, interests, and goals, Obenza feels that what really makes a course successful are the singers themselves and the life friendships that form among them. In the past years, attendance at the courses swelled from 20 participants per course to nearly 50. Now, the course is capped at close to 30. Obenza is considering organizing another Renaissance singing workshop for advanced singers this year in Seattle.
Workshops can take a variety of formats depending on the ensembles that organize them, but their common focus remains on music as a shared experience. Overcoming initial barriers to the music is key, and this could be why the majority of the workshops focus on singing as an entryway. In Ontario and British Columbia, the Canadian Renaissance Music Summer Schools have been holding courses focused entirely on Renaissance polyphony since 2022. Greg Skidmore, artistic director and founder, acknowledges that CRMSS was inspired by the Tallis Scholars Summer School, as well as the Lacock courses for choral and consort singers led by Andrew van der Beek. He also admitted that the impetus for CRMSS was his genuine love of Renaissance music and recognition of how few workshops in North America offered the same level of immersion. Skidmore envisioned CRMSS with a “Renaissance-first-and-only” approach, wanting participants to feel at home with the music, whatever their previous level of familiarity.
Skidmore noted that one challenge is how unaccompanied choral music is a rarity in our age. Many of the characteristics of Renaissance polyphony, even equal voices, or vocal textures greater than four-part harmony, can feel foreign to modern singers. Nevertheless, he sees past these barriers to what the music truly has to offer. “Counterpoint of any kind, and Renaissance polyphony in particular, is the ultimate musical expression of collaboration and this ethos is present in everything we do at CRMSS.” He recalls moments of the course in which experienced singers supported those with less experience, which encouraged all of the singers to feel more confident and take greater risks.
CRMSS is a federally registered charity in Canada, but the courses have been largely covered by participant costs. As the scope of their efforts expands, the organization hopes to cultivate greater sponsorship in the future. Skidmore devotes time to running CRMSS as a whole organization on and off throughout the year, responsibilities he combines with an active freelance career as a baritone and conductor in the U.K. During courses, faculty and staff work nonstop. The effort is undoubtedly worthwhile, Skidmore reflects. “There are many moments when I can see in the face of a participant that they have discovered a level of beauty and power in this music that I love so much that they didn’t know was there. That happens often, but it never fails to be special; it’s what the courses are for.”
Skidmore knows that the goal of championing Renaissance music, as he sees it, is “open-ended and impossible to complete.” Still, he hopes that, after participants leave the workshop, they will be inspired by their own curiosity for the music and that they, too, will champion it within their own communities.
Laura Osterlund is a freelance recorder player based in Chicago who specializes in Medieval and Renaissance improvisation. She earned an MA in Historical Performance Practice from Case Western Reserve in 2018 and a BMus in Early Music Performance from McGill in 2012.
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