Polysembles
Our ‘Polysembles’ are larger and/or mixed ensembles.
These include choirs, orchestras, medieval band & and folk ensembles.
In the earlier days of HISS, these were the evening sessions, opportunities for larger mixed ensembles to work on repertoire jointly – one of the features of HISS. However, as timetabling has varied in recent years, these are not always scheduled every evening! The feedback every year indicates the joy singers and players in these sessions to join with and see and hear the sheer variety of instruments that are assembled at HISS!
These are the polysembles on offer for 2026:
Details to follow
with Alison Kinder, and Mary Tyers
for recorders, viols and plucked strings
Folk Band
Using folk melodies to create ensemble arrangements, focussing on how to let the source material inform the arrangement.
with John Dipper and Hazel Askew
all instruments and voices welcome
Details to follow
with Rebecca Austen-Brown and Tim Bayley
all instruments welcome (Medieval Band)
Voices/strings/brass/continuo
The repertoire planned will include music by the French Baroque composer Michel Richard Delalande [de Lalande], who was a French Baroque composer and organist in the service of the “Sun King” Louis XIV. He wrote orchestral music and grand motets.
There will also be music by Francesco Cavalli, successor to Claudio Monteverdi at St Mark’s, Venice, who wrote Vespro della Beata Vergine (1656) on a similar large scale to Monteverdi’s settings of 1610.
Singers, strings, brass and continuo players all invited
Graham Coatman, Anne-Marie Christensen,
Catherine Strachan, & Richard Thomas, Georg Bartle
In advance of the course we will ask you to choose which of these groups you would like to join