Oakham International Summer School (OISS), running now for three years, is the Tallis Scholars? summer school at Oakham in Rutland. It came into being after a masterclass at Stamford Arts Centre in May 1998, when Oakham School?s Music Director David Woodcock brought his choir to study with Tallis Scholars? Director Peter Phillips at a festival, writes Juliet Allen.
I was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time as the conversation turned to what fun it would be to have a whole week of this!
The Tallis Scholars have a world-wide following, and people had been asking Peter Phillips for years for an opportunity to study with him. We did some low-budget test marketing. Email bulletins and pages on the Oakham School website, plus a bit of direct mail to early music organisations in the UK and abroad, indicated a high level of interest. And in July 2000, 35 singers arrived at a very wet Oakham for a week?s total submersion in Renaissance choral music. We had a crofter from John O?Groats, a Japanese woman who had a nervous breakdown on arrival (we were assured she was already having one before she came!), a whole posse from the US, and singers at all levels from across Europe. We turned nobody away, and the age range was 16 to 73. They were students, doctors, IT consultants, lawyers, engineers, stock traders ? all with a passion for Renaissance choral music. 2001 brought further singers from Iceland, Korea and Australia, and we?ve now had the brochure translated into Japanese.
OISS works superbly as a ?brand extension? for the Tallis Scholars as an educational platform for their work. A small but enthusiastic global OISS community is now generating all sorts of spin-offs as singers go home inspired to set up their own groups and even their own courses, as well as inviting the Tallis Scholars to sing in their home cities.
This year we expect to be oversubscribed, allowing us to select singers more carefully and develop a reputation for quality. Plans are for a second week in the UK, and then perhaps a course either in the US or Australia.
Juliet Allen is General Manager of the Oakham International Summer School. t: 01223 578153; e: juliet.allan@oiss.org.uk