Thomas Fournil: Old Roman Chant and Corsican vocal traditions

About the leader

Two Kyries, One World: Old Roman and Corsican Chant

Thomas Fournil (b. 1990) is a Corsican composer and researcher working between history, oral traditions, music archaeology, and technology. He founded Idrîsî Ensemble and works as artistic director, mentor, singer, hurdy-gurdy player, and portative organ player, shaping performances of medieval Mediterranean repertoire alongside new commissions. He specialises in troubadour song and Old Roman chant, and explores how recent work in musicology, archaeology, and medieval literature, in dialogue with living oral traditions, can inform medieval music-making. He is especially interested in ornamentation, micro-intonation, vocal technique, variation, improvisation, heterophony, and text declamation. His practice-based doctorate as a medievalist composer also informs teaching approaches that welcome diverse backgrounds, skills, and learning styles, and supports postcolonial, non-modern, feminocentric, and queer enquiries into identity.

https://www.idrisiensemble.com

What we’ll do on the day

The workshop will begin with a guided introduction to Old Roman chant and its place within European history. We then move into practice, learning two contrasting Kyrie eleison: an Old Roman Kyrie from the earliest Roman manuscript tradition (11th century), and a Corsican Kyrie from Franciscan manuscripts (17th century).

Old Roman chant is our oldest Greco-Latin tradition, and a particularly ornate chant from late antiquity. These manuscripts transport us to the dawn of Christianity, at a crossroads between the ancient liturgies of Jerusalem, Syria, Egypt, and Constantinople. Rediscovered in the 20th century, Old Roman chant still awaits the central place it deserves in our collective consciousness, offering fresh insights into our shared cultural and spiritual heritage. Often overlooked in current discussions on the interpretation of mediaeval chant, these manuscripts provide singers with precise and complex instructions, revealing a rich vocal aesthetic in resonance with Mediterranean traditions.

Corsican sacred polyphony offers a rare continuation of that wider Mediterranean heritage in living, oral form. In Corsica, singers retained codes of vocal production and improvisation from mediaeval, Renaissance, and Baroque oral traditions, often merging them together. Placed alongside Old Roman chant, Corsican chant helps us hear how a Mediterranean vocal imagination can persist across centuries. This is the ultimate time travel experience.

Who it’s for
Ideal for singers who love exploring new traditions and want a fresh musical experience—curious ears welcome; no early-music background required.

The Stonegate Singers are a busy community choir based in York UK. Recent performance include concerts around York, and events such as the Stonegate Singers Ceilidh Night, together with the brilliant folk band The House Devils. The Stonegate Singers have performed live on the BBC, and as part of community events such as The Great Get Together in Rowntree Park. In August 2017, we performed in the Creswell Crags limestone gorge as part of Refugium, a new mixed media piece by director Jon Hughes.