The Tudor Fair Blog
Staying relevant in pop culture after 500 years: Tallis and Spem in Alium
A few months ago I went to pull up a recording of Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Alium, his famous 40 part motet written for 8 5-part choirs. I hadn’t listened to it in a while, and it was the kind of day that called for some later Tallis. The recording that came…
Anne Boleyn’s Songbook: sharing the intimate emotions of a Queen
I posted recently about my interview with Dr. David Skinner, an eminent musicologist based out of the College of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. When I posted before it was about the logistics of my interview (getting caught in the rain, microphone not working, etc etc). But now that his CD is…
Queen or Pope – Catholics in Elizabethan England
Caitlin Moran talks in her book, How to be a Woman, about the idea that often when we discover a particular book, we are suddenly introduced to all its friends, and so join this society that we hadn’t even known existed before. So if you, for example, start reading Dorothy…
Ronda: How one city is Celtic, Roman, Moorish and Christian all at the same time
Ronda is the closest big town to where we live, it’s where our Spanish school is located, and where we do most of our shopping (when we don’t want to make the drive to Little England aka Gibraltar). It’s jam packed with history, and the architecture is a constant reminder that…
These things seem wondrous: Weelkes and the giddiness in late 16th century England
Last week when I was interviewing Suzi Digby for my podcast episode on her Los Angeles based project The Golden Bridge, which pairs choral music of the English Renaissance with that of contemporary composers, she mentioned a madrigal by Thomas Weelkes called The Andalusian Merchant. Since I live in Andalusia,…
Let’s Pause for a Moment, and Reflect
I’ve started working through the Jeff Goins TribeWriters and Intentional Blogging course in the past month. I’m about midway through TribeWriters, which is why you’re seeing some nifty changes around this blog – like a move towards being self-hosted, the newsletter sign up box, a more consistent blogging schedule (which I’m…
Suzi Digby talks 500 years of choral music in 34 minutes.
In 2011 I met Suzi Digby via Twitter. Having found out that she is a choral goddess and was in Los Angeles for a visiting professorship in choral conducting and arts leadership, I immediately asked if I could take her to coffee and meet her. I visited her in Queen’s…
Visiting Gibraltar: How to Capture a Piece of England in Spain
When I first arrived in Spain back in June, I wanted to go exploring – Seville, Granada (the Alhambra) – there were very few cities in Andalusia through which I didn’t want to wander. But it was summer. And Europe was in the midst of this awful heatwave. So we planned all…
Old Music Monday: The colorful life of Francesco Maria Veracini
One of the great debates in classical music right now is whether video game music should be included in the genre of classical, even when a symphony is playing it. I’ve long been a fan of the Oblivion soundtrack, and downloaded it before these kinds of scores were available…
The Love of History and Humanities: The Manifesto of a Passion
Yesterday I was talking with a friend about how I’m excited to go to the Spanish Archives in Simancas, north of Madrid, where all of the letters from Eustace Chapuys are displayed. He was the Spanish Ambassador to England when Henry VIII was giving the middle finger to the Pope in…
The Week in Books: Mary Queen of Scots wasn’t Actually a Catholic Martyr
I’ve been working on a podcast about Mary Queen of Scots, which I’ll be recording this week, and as part of that I’ve been reading John Guy’s book, Queen of Scots (available to read on Oyster, too). Most people who know Elizabethan history are familiar with the story of the tragic Catholic queen,…
Writing About Reading and Writing: The Netgalley Experiment
I’ve posted before about my experiment with my own memoir, Fragile, and Perfectly Cracked, my story of giving birth to a stillborn son as well as dealing with subsequent infertility problems. It was a labor of love for me to get this out there. I’m currently working on my first novel,…