Registration Deadline: May 22, 2026

When: Sunday, May 31, 2026; 10am-4pm

Where: Community Room at 50 West 97th Street (between Central Park West and Columbus Avenues)

About the Workshop:

Gather with other viol players for a full-day, in-person workshop directed by Tod Hedrick and supported by coach and VdGS/GNY board president, Nicholas Kleinman.

The viol consort repertoire shares much with the polyphonic secular songs of its time: intricate counterpoint, voices in imitation, variation of slow and lively melodic themes, and often pre-tonal “harmonic” techniques that are exciting to our twenty-first-century ears.  Many (if not all) well known composers of such songs were familiar with the viol and its music, and viol players (professional and amateur) knew the popular songs of the Italian madrigal and related genres.  In our time, viol consorts tend to focus on repertoire written specifically for their instruments rather than adapting vocal music–although there are notable exceptions, including our own New York-based consort, Parthenia.  The Italian madrigal includes tens of thousands of works from the 1530s to the 1640s, with the vocal ranges adapting perfectly to the usual consort instruments of treble, tenor, and bass viols.  In addition to their captivating melodic shapes and surprising counterpoint, madrigals have the additional feature of having close relationships between music and lyrics, both in imitating the meaning of words and in highlighting the sound effects of poetry.  

In this workshop we will play a few choice works from the Italian madrigal repertoire, exploring simple phrasing to make our bows sound more voice-like and bring out the melodies and rhythms that were natural to singers of these works.  Viol player and musicologist Tod Hedrick (PhD-CUNY Graduate Center, 2024) will give a short lecture describing the theories and attitudes regarding poetry and song that shaped how verses (and therefore, madrigals) were structured.  We will experiment with different ways of accentuating different syllables, melodic motives, and interplay between the voice parts using our viols, and come to an understanding not only of playing the music more historically informed, but with greater enjoyment and range of interpretations.

Register by May 22 to reserve a spot!  Late registrants will be accepted only if space is available.  Register and pay online below, or if you prefer to pay in person, register online here and bring your $20 payment as check made out to Viola da Gamba Society of Greater New York or cash.