Historically Informed Summer School

Book your place at this year's HISS - early music fans, and folk singers and instrumentalists all welcome. Go to www.hiss.org.uk Here's a quick overview of what we do:

Our other guest tutor for 2026 is Emily Saville, who was guest teacher for historical trombone at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in 2023-4, and was the first student to obtain a Pedagogy Master’s in Historical Trombone at the same institution, under the joint tutelage of Catherine Motuz and Michael Büttler. In June 2025 she was appointed teacher for Baroque Trombone at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Musikschule (CH). Emily enjoys teaching on numerous courses and workshops, including at the Landesmusikakademie Rheinland-Pfalz (DE), on La Furta’s summer and winter courses (CH), and now at HISS! She has taken an active role in learning and participation projects with such organisations as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Stour Early Music Festival, Glyndebourne Opera House, and the English Touring Opera. Emily will be joining us from her return visits in July to Alte Musik Kurs, Landesmusikakademie Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany and La Furta: Sommerkurs Alte Musik, Aarau, Switzerland. See her in performance in Francesca Caccini’s Maria, dolce Maria (Primo Libro delle Musiche Florence, 1618) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOB9EpLAd3Q

We are delighted to have Eric Thomas as our lute & theorbo tutor at HISS 2026 Here he is in action recently at a lunchtime concert at St Andrew's Universrity, with Elizabeth Unsworth-Wilson (mezzo-soprano). They gave a programme of 17th-century songs and lute pieces, ranging from England to Italy.
https://www.facebook.com/UniversityofStAndrewsMusicCentre/videos/26121673454123167

🇺🇳 🔸 John Dowland – a true citizen of the world.

🔹 February 20, 2026 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of John Dowland – the finest English composer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque, a virtuoso lutenist, and a master of melancholy.
▪️ His life was as restless as his music. Born around 1563, he spent his youth at the French court, where he converted to Catholicism – a decision that for many years closed the door to a career in Protestant England. Despite his efforts, the court of Queen Elizabeth I refused him a position as a court lutenist.

▪️ Disheartened, he left his homeland and set out into the world. For eight years (1598–1606) he served as court lutenist to King Christian IV of Denmark – one of Europe's most generous patrons of the arts. He travelled through Germany and Italy, absorbing new musical currents. He finally returned to London for good in 1612, when, under the reign of James I, his lifelong dream was fulfilled: he became a lutenist at the royal court.

▪️ He died in London and was buried on 20 February 1626 at St Ann's, Blackfriars. This date is now accepted by musicologists as the day of his death.

🔹 His work represents the pinnacle of the English lute song.
▪️ He composed 88 songs, published in four collections (First Booke of Songes or Ayres, 1597 – one of the most important music publications of the era). His most famous work, Flow my teares, became a true hit of its time, and the instrumental cycle based on it, Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares (1604), still astonishes with its craftsmanship and emotional depth.

▪️ He also left around 90 solo lute pieces – pavans, galliards, and chromatic fantasies that are unmatched in emotional intensity within the Renaissance lute repertoire.

🔹 Dowland signed his works with a telling motto:
▪️ Semper Dowland, semper dolens – "Always Dowland, always grieving."

▪️ This was not merely an expression of personal melancholy but a conscious artistic persona. Melancholy – the "disease of scholars and artists" – was in Elizabethan and Jacobean England a mark of depth and refinement. Dowland made it his trademark.

🔹 Today, his music is as alive as ever.
▪️ After centuries of neglect, the 20th-century early music revival brought him back to concert stages. He became a canonised figure for lutenists and classical guitarists, an inspiration to composers such as Benjamin Britten (Nocturnal after John Dowland, 1963), and even to contemporary artists – Sting released an album, Songs from the Labyrinth (2006), devoted entirely to Dowland's music.

▪️ It is also worth noting the contemporary Polish approach to the composer's music. In 2025, the project Dowland Electric was met with great acclaim. It was realized by outstanding musicians specializing in early music: tenor Aleksander Rewiński and electric guitarist Paweł Zalewski. Their reinterpretation of Dowland's songs is not a purist reconstruction, but a search for new shades of meaning. The electric guitar becomes a contemporary parallel to the lute – the instrument which, in the composer's time, was meant to "touch the strings of the soul." This is proof that Dowland's melancholic world still resonates within contemporary culture.
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Graphic design – Krzysztof Pabiś SCEMI based on Theodoor Rombouts, The Lute Player, c.1625., Philadelphia Museum of Art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Text – Krzysztof Pabiś SCEMI, based on own materials and the musicological sources (Grove Music Online, The New Grove Dictionary, and the works of Diana Poulton and Peter Holman).

HISS 2026 will be 17 - 21 August at Bishop Burton College, near Beverley, Yorkshire. Booking wll open very soon. Amongst highlights will be music by Richard de Lalande and Francesco Cavalli.

The triumphant finale at HISS 2025 - 4 groups performing in our grand finale: Gabrieli (4 "choirs" in 16 parts); folk band; Brade suite for wind orchestra (in 3 movements); medieval group's Nightingale, and finally Zielinski's Magnificat (3 "choirs" in 12 parts) - "What a blast!" as someone said

We have a fabulous fantastic team of tutors, and they are always very happy to help each other out!

Still at the Tutors concert - almost all in Geminiani's version of La Follia, plus some spirited piping from Richard and Tim! And John explains how his 14 stringed Viola d'Amore works.

More memorable moments of HISS 2025: our fantastic team of tutors get to strut their stuff at the tutors concert. Here Richard, Lynda and Claire in a trio for cornett, theorbo and sackbut; and an evocative and poignant instrumental from folk duo John and Hazell - spellbinding!

A selection of Highlight moments from this year's HISS - 1 Gillian's very informative and entertaining shortie presentation: "Music in the Garden: making music in gardens since the middle ages" and 2 our highly accomplished mandolin player Lorraine in the continuo class. There are opportunities to do so many different things at HISS, and many return each year to try something new!

First bar session of tunes got us going - great start to the week!

We're set for a great time next week at HISS 2025! A bumper crowd and we're ready for you! Lots of exciting music from Assandra to Zielenski coming up! And thanks to Toulson for super efficiency!