In the context of our residence at the Fondation Royaumont, a masterclass "A day in the life of a medieval cantor" will be held in May 2014. This work, which started in 2013, will be continued this spring, including Parisian virtuosic musical repertories of the late XIIIth century.

Our session will concentrate on the office of St Louis, composed to celebrate the holy king, canonised at the end of the XIIIth century.

Faculty

Katarina Livljanić, singer, musicologist (maître de conférences at the University of Paris-Sorbonne), artistic director of the ensemble Dialogos

Benjamin Bagby, singer, harpist, artistic director of the ensemble Sequentia, instructor at the University of Paris-Sorbonne

Jean-Baptiste Lebigue, specialist in medieval liturgy, Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (CNRS)

The course will culminate in a new creation by the ensemble Dialogos, whose singers will join course participants in a concert of the Fondation Royaumont musical season (September 2014).

The new programme will be focused on the office for Saint Louis in the context of polyphonic repertoires related to the king, and will also be related to the encyclopedic work Speculum maius by the Dominican friar Vincent de Beauvais (died in Royaumont in 1264), one of the most important intellectuals in St Louis’s entourage. Speculum Maius, a large interdisciplinary summa of XIIIth century western world, was the result of a long team effort (1240-1260) led by the Cistercian monks of Royaumont and the dominicans from St Jacques in Paris, at the urging of St Louis.

Dates: 3-9 May 2014
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