We are excited to announce the continuation of Medieval Mondays taught by NAVRS music director Annette Bauer - thank you for your continued interest in medieval music!The Medieval Mondays Fall Edition 2025 runs from September to December in four sessions.
Each class will focus on a particular medieval topic, composer, or musical source. A brief overview of the historical context is followed by a selection of music to discover and play together. Scores will be available for registered participants a week ahead of each class. Play-along files will be created on recorders.
Medieval Mondays will take place on zoom on the following dates, always from 12:30-2pm Eastern:
- September 8: Medieval Rounds and Grounds
- October 27: Medieval Bestiary
- November 17: La Spagna
- December 15: Early 15th century English Carols
Each class will focus on a particular medieval topic, composer, or musical source. A brief overview of the historical context is followed by a selection of music to discover and play together. Scores will be available for registered participants a week ahead of each class. Play-along files will be created on recorders.
Medieval Mondays will take place on zoom on the following dates, always from 12:30-2pm Eastern:
--September 8: Medieval rounds and grounds
--October 27: Medieval Bestiary
--November 17: La Spagna
--December 15: Early 15th century English Carols
Each Zoom meeting will be recorded and will stay viewable on demand until one full month after the final session of the series. Come join in on this musical time-travel on Mondays from 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm Eastern time. The course fee of $80 includes all 4 live sessions and the recordings.
This amazing course is 12 weeks long and registration is now open!
Some comments from attendees last fall:
- "Having the same leader over several meeting was great"
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"Karen was, as usual, well organized and clear with her instructions and is great to work with."
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"I really like working on pieces over 3 months. As a beginner, this is ideal, because I practice a lot to catch up with the others."
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"Karen is very encouraging and able to make the meeting interesting and helpful to all the players (even when there is a wide range of playing skills)."
The dates and clinicians for our meetings this year will be:
September 12, 2025 - TBA
November 21, 2025 - Joan Kimball
January 16, 2026 - Gwyn Roberts
March 13, 2026 - Bob Wiemken
May 15, 2026 - TBA
Music, when provided by the clinician, will be available digitally before the meetings. If anyone requires or desires a print copy for the meeting, please let me know. I'm more than happy to make as many physical copies as needed, but don't want to waste paper on unneeded copies.
Our meetings will be held from 7:30-9:30 pm at:
New Ark UCC Church
300 East Main Street
Newark, DE 19711
The fee for our meetings will be $15 per meeting or $60 for an annual membership (covers all 5 meetings). Fees help support the chapter by providing honorariums to our guest clinicians as well as an honorarium for New Ark UCC for allowing us to use the space.
You can bring payment with you to the first meeting or send a check made to "Brandywine ARS" to our treasurer, Fred Litcofsky. Fred can be reached fredlitcofsky@gmail or 19 Savoy Rd., Newark, DE 19702
As always, guests are free on their first visit, so please feel free to invite a friend (or 2 or 3)!
"Subdivide and Conquer"Solid rhythmic skills begin with understanding how the beats break down into smaller units. The relationship of the rhythm to the time signature and tempo may make things even MORE confusing. This session will help players at earlier stages of music reading implement a counting system to help with rhythmic improvement. There will be some playing, but we will mostly be breaking down the rhythms the old-fashioned way—with a pencil applied to our music! We’ll cover a few time signatures and basic note and rest rhythms through sixteenth notes.
Players of all levels invited; pace of the class will be appropriate for lower-intermediate to intermediate players.
Great News!
The Highland Park Recorder Society’s online Seminar Series in Early Music Performance begins Monday, September 15, 2025, 7:30 P.M. Eastern Time. We are honored and privileged to present Distinguished Professor and Early Music leader, Rainer Beckmann, leading us in:
A Leipzig Connection : Instrumental and Vocal Music by Schein, Calvisius, Fritsch, and Bach
Leipzig, the historic trade and university city in Saxony, was home to many of Germany’s most celebrated composers. A Leipzig Connection explores the musical ties between four influential figures active there in the early 17th to mid-18th centuries: Johann Hermann Schein, Sethus Calvisius, Balthasar Fritsch, and Johann Sebastian Bach. The program pairs spirited ensemble dances with engaging contrapuntal works, offering both historical insight and musical delight. Grounded in the rich stylistic and historical connections among these composers, the program promises to engage as much as it enlightens.
All are welcome! SATB Recorders, A=440hz
German born recorder player Rainer Beckmann performs with a large variety of early music ensembles in the Philadelphia Tri-State area. For more on his outstanding bio, please see https://hprecorder.org/artists/beckmann-rainer/ .
To register, visit https://hprecorder.org/events/2026-online-seminars/
Can’t wait to see you September 15! Sincerely, Donna Messer
Dates of Upcoming Online Seminars – Mark your calendars
Oct. 20, 2025 with Adam Gilbert A Century of Symmetry and Song (1430-1530)– Part 1
Nov. 3, 2025 with Rainer Beckmann French Sweets: Dance Music in Louis XIV’s Paris
Dec, 1, 2025 with Annette Bauer Llibre Vermell - The Red Book of Montserrat!
Jan 5, 2026 with Rainer Beckmann Spanish Music of Victoria, Morales and Guerrero
March 23, 2026 with Annette Bauer Music by Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
May 4, 2026 with Adam Gilbert A Century of Symmetry and Song – Part 2
June 8 2026 with Rainer Beckmann An Italian Journey – Madrigals, Dances, Canzonas
The workshop will explore tunes from our “Playford English Country Dance Tunes for Two”. This curated collection contains 37 tunes from the 1651 edition of Playford’s “The English Dancing Master” arranged for two players. The melodies are on the top stave, and the harmony/backup is on the bottom stave.
Bring any size of soprano, alto, tenor, or bass recorder that you have. You will have a chance to explore more than one part of each piece. Both plastic and wooden instruments are welcome. Pitch is A=440.
Please bring a music stand. We recommend that you bring a stand light to supplement the ceiling light.
More info: https://www.nyrg.org/
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The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin at 145 West 46th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Manhattan. Meetings are held in St. Joseph’s Hall, a side chapel of St. Mary's. Located in a brick building to the left of the main church, the entranceway is distinguished by the street number 145 displayed on the door.
1:30-3:30 PM. Doors open at 1PM.
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Meeting Fees:
$20 per meeting for members
$30 per meeting for non-members
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FULL SEASON PREPAYMENT OPTION: $180. Includes annual membership dues and meeting fees for the entire 2025-26 season.
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Send payment using Zelle to NYRG treasurer Judith Wink at jwink@nyc.rr.com. Please put your email address in the Notes field. Alternatively, send checks to New York Recorder Guild, 145 West 93rd Street, Apt. 2, New York, NY 10025.
The recorder is a wonderful instrument for anyone seeking the joy of making music with others,
exploring a wide range of repertoire, and learning to play in a relatively short time. Whether
you're completely new to the recorder, haven't played in years, or aren't yet comfortable reading
music, this course is designed for you!
Join professional recorder player and teacher Marea Chernoff in the American Recorder Society’s four-part beginner course for alto recorder. You'll build a strong foundation as you learn to produce a beautiful tone right from the start. The course covers essential skills such as breath control, hand and finger positioning, articulation, and the basics of note reading and rhythm.
Course Dates:
Wednesday, September 24th, 2025 at 4PM ET (3PM CT, 2PM MT, 1PM PT)Wednesday, October 1st, 2025 at 4PM ET (3PM CT, 2PM MT, 1PM PT)
Wednesday, October 8th, 2025 at 4PM ET (3PM CT, 2PM MT, 1PM PT)
Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 at 4PM ET (3PM CT, 2PM MT, 1PM PT)
Do you need to purchase an instrument? You cannot go wrong with a good plastic recorder—they can actually sound better than a poor wooden one! Yamaha and Aulos make very good plastic recorders. Consider purchasing an instrument from one of our business partners:
Honeysuckle Music: 651-644-8545
Von Huene Workshop (The Early Music Shop of New England): (617) 277-8690
Lazar’s Early Music: (770) 366-8596
Recorder Forge: (503) 206-6212
Short Lives, Lasting LegaciesRobert Parsons, Henry Purcell, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart all died heartbreakingly young — and yet their music continues to resonate with us centuries later. Spanning the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical periods, this playing meeting will explore music ranging from Parsons’ serene Ave Maria to Pergolesi’s poignant and luminous Stabat Mater, and from Purcell’s clever canons to Mozart’s witty rounds. These beautiful selections of sacred and profane music in 3-5 parts reveal brilliant genius distilled into too few years — music that feels at once complete, and yet leaves us with tantalizing “what ifs.” Travel from the Renaissance to the Baroque and Classical eras as we explore humorous rounds, heartfelt laments, and radiant sacred works by composers whose genius burned brightly but briefly.
If you have never played recorder before, or if it has been eons since you have played, this is the course for you! Build a solid foundation for learning recorder through this 4-part beginners' course for soprano or tenor recorder starting on September 29. Professional recorder teacher Laura Townsend will cover basics such as hand and finger position, tonguing, and tone, and instill good habits for continuing to learn on your own or with a teacher. All ages are welcome, but children should be joined by an adult during the classes.
Course Dates:
Monday, September 29 at 8:00pm, ET (7:00pm, CT; 6:00pm, MT; 5:00pm, PT)
Thursday, October 2 at 8:00pm, ET (7:00pm, CT; 6:00pm, MT; 5:00pm, PT)
Monday, October 6 at 8:00pm, ET (7:00pm, CT; 6:00pm, MT; 5:00pm, PT)
Monday, October 9 at 8:00pm, ET (7:00pm, CT; 6:00pm, MT; 5:00pm, PT)
Do you need to purchase an instrument? You cannot go wrong with a good plastic recorder—they can actually sound better than a poor wooden one! Yamaha and Aulos make very good plastic recorders. Consider purchasing an instrument from one of our business partners:
Honeysuckle Music: 651-644-8545
Von Huene Workshop (The Early Music Shop of New England): (617) 277-8690
Lazar’s Early Music: (770) 366-8596
Recorder Forge: (503) 206-6212
September 30, October 7, 14, and 21
1:15 pm- 2:30 pm PT/2:15 pm – 3:30 pm MT/3:15 pm – 4:30 pm CT/4:15 pm – 5:30 pm ET (note the 15 minute earlier time than usual!)
In this 4-session class we'll start each session on a technique warm-up, then each week we’ll work on sections of a new piece, making a brief survey of repertoire for the recorder player. We’ll focus on effective practice methods for all pieces. For intermediate and up alto and soprano (or tenor) recorder players. Pitch: a=440.
Repertoire - Medieval: dance tune La Quarta Estampie Royal, 16th century: diminutions on Anchor che col partire by Bassano, 17th century: sonata by Frescobaldi, 18th century: Handel Sonata in F major.
$100 for all three classes. Classes will be recorded and available to stream for one month. To learn how to register, please write to Tish at tishberlin@sbcglobal.net. Music will be sent as PDFs one week before first class.