Digitally Reconstructing Tudor Music Manuscripts: A Public Open Weekend
15 May 13:30 to 18:30
Faculty of Music, St Aldates, Oxford
When the Elizabethan gentleman John Sadler sat down to copy his music partbooks - adorned with elaborate initials, colourful inscriptions and charming pictures of birds, animal and plants - little did he know that he had chosen an overly acidic ink. Over the centuries this ink has burned through the paper leaving his once beautiful partbooks stained, difficult to read and too fragile to be handled. With funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Tudor Partbooks team are digitally reconstructing Sadler's manuscripts to return them to their former glory and a more legible state. Join us at our open weekend to discover more about John Sadler and the process of digitally reconstructing his partbooks. Drop in to meet our team of volunteer restorers, try your hand at digital reconstruction, hear performances of the music that Sadler copied by viols consorts and choirs, or even have a go at singing from our reconstructed manuscript pages. Free event, open to all.
A schedule of talks and performances will be made available on the Tudor Partbooks website.