Aspects of English Song

Essays by Anthony Rooley; edited by Giovanna Baviera & Martin Kirnbauer; introduction by Tess Knighton

Anthony Rooley, together with Evelyn Tubb, had a profound influence on vocal training at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and gave new impulses over decades (beginning with courses as early as the 1980s and with a permanent teaching position since 1999 until 2018). In particular, the Advanced Vocal Ensemble Studies (AVES) course he initiated in 2008 introduced many singers to the supreme discipline of Renaissance and Early Baroque a cappella singing. Central to his teaching was the power of language, shaped by the art of oratory and performance, disciplines which Anthony Rooley himself also masters exceptionally well. Language is both the medium and represents the content, like two sides of a coin. In the context of teaching, therefore, he wrote many texts and essays that give us an idea of the intellectual background against which he developed his musical ideas.
The Schola Cantorum Basiliensis is proud to be able to publish some of these essays in this collection. These texts are still notably close to the original inspiring oral lecture. They also document Anthony Rooleys passion for using pictorial representations, which bring a further, to a certain extent non-verbal level into his teaching. *** This collection of essays is an open access publication in PDF-format ***