Guildhall Artist in Performance: Historical Performance

Contact music@gsmd.ac.uk

Recognised by all departments in the school as fundamental to any musician's training, Historically Informed Performance offers students a solid basis for a sustained and rewarding career in the music profession. Many leading figures of the period performance movement today studied at the school (for instance, Rachel Podger, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Jane Booth, Pamela Thorby) and are now among its professors in their specialist fields. Equally important to instrumentalists playing on modern as well as historical originals or copies, and to singers, a knowledge of traditions and techniques of the past can always inform our performances of the future. The
Department of Historical Performance offers a thorough grounding in skills and techniques backed up by regular performance opportunities of chamber, orchestral and operatic works given inside and outside the school. The Guildhall's reputation for excellence in professional training is fundamental to the mission of this department and its association with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as well as The Sixteen is an expression of this commitment.

The School's growing collection of historical instruments is available on short or long term loan. The department draws from the experience and imagination of its internationally regarded teachers in presenting a wide range of performance opportunities for students engaged on a variety of courses across the school.

Working alongside our internationally renowned professors such as Pamela Thorby on chamber music, or on larger orchestral projects under the guidance of international Director and newly-appointed Professor of Baroque Violin, Pavlo Beznosiuk, students of the school have regular opportunities to perform key repertoire as well as less well-known masterpieces. Performances are integrated into the web of regular and guest classes which complete the picture of historical performance for those wishing for a career centred in this sector.

Students participate in Masterclasses from distinguished international soloists including Ton Koopman, Anner Bylsma and Robert Erlich.

Players of continuo instruments benefit from a preferential tuition fee rate.

Prospective applicants are invited to discuss their interest in this course with the Head of Historical Performance, Jane Booth.

Department of Historical Performance teaching staff

Audition

Your audition panel will be listening for a sense of appropriate variety in your playing. This is perhaps best illustrated by choosing repertoire that includes a range of styles. If you are focusing on baroque music, for example, try to include works by early and late composers of different nationalities (e.g., Hotteterre; Locatelli; CPE Bach). Candidates submitting a recorded audition must meet all of the requirements below (singers should therefore include six items on their recording).

Singers

Be prepared to sing three or four items from a varied list of six, which should include: a sixteenth-century song; an opera aria from the first half of the eighteenth century; an extended recitative or monody. At least one item to be in English and one in Italian.

Woodwind and Brass

Three contrasting pieces appropriate to your instrument, which may include contemporary repertoire if you wish.

Violin, Viola and Cello

At least two movements from an unaccompanied work by JS Bach; a seventeenth-century sonata plus a piece of your own choice.

Viols

Three contrasting pieces of your choice, to include contrasting national styles.

Lute

Three contrasting pieces appropriate to your instrument(s). Candidates should be familiar with French and Italian tabulature, and expect to undertake figured-bass tests at sight. Candidates submitting a recording must include examples of their continuo playing.

Harpsichord

Three or four pieces to include French and Italian styles. Your programme should include works in contrapuntal and variation form. You should expect to undertake figured-bass tests at sight. Candidates submitting a recording must include examples of their continuo playing.

Fortepiano

A complete sonata by Haydn; Mozart; Beethoven or Clementi; a nocturne by John Field plus a piece of your own choice.