10:30am - 4:30pm   Mathon Village Hall, Mathon, Nr. Malvern
day workshop  ~   bring lunch to share
£20 in advance,  £22 on the door,  £16 concessions (in advance only) 

Rasullah & Nickomo

"The Harmonic Temple" is a remarkable collection of four part harmony chants written by Nickomo himself.  Most of the texts come from various spiritual traditions. Singing these chants in a group is uplifting and inspiring, as if you are part of a living temple of sound.  You don't need to read music or be an expert singer to experience this special ambience.

Nickomo is renowned for his energy and clarity, and the ability to produce that special ambience from singers of all levels of ability.  He currently co-leads the 120-voice People of Note community choir in Bristol, the Frome Community Choir, and the Bath Community Singers.  He also gives voice workshops in the UK and around the world.  He has also published several books of the Harmonic Temple chants he has composed and arranged.  Rasullah, who also teaches voice and Dances of Universal Peace, will support Nickomo and help the group learn the parts. 

‘The Harmonic Temple’ is a collection of chants in four part harmony using short texts from a broad spectrum of spiritual traditions. When sung repeatedly in an open-hearted manner, a special ambience develops; a feeling of being in a Sacred space created by the sound of the harmony, which for want of a better expression, I call 'the Harmonic Temple'. When the chants are accompanied with movements, the dance becomes a living mandala, or body-prayer: The aim is, with repetition, to get to the place where one is no longer struggling to maintain one's vocal line, or to remember the steps, and one is fully experiencing being part of the beauty of the dance.

The first time I experienced the 'Harmonic Temple' in this way, was when using chants from Taizé, an ecumenical Christian community in Burgundy established in 1940 with an international multi-sectarian membership. To provide a common language of musical prayer, the musician and friend of Taizé, Jaques Berthier has composed many repetitive chants to short texts in Latin, which have become very popular throughout the world.

I first encountered this music as a Circle Dancer, where it would often be used at the end of an evening's dancing to provide the music for the 'Meditation Dance', which is a slow, simple dance usually done with the candle in the centre as sole illumination. I wanted to sing along, and wondered what it would be like if the group itself were creating the music instead of listening to a tape recording, so when the opportunity came (Oak Dragon Dance Camp 1988) I went for it. It didn't gel completely at the first session, but when we repeated it late in the evening by candlelight, it was very powerful.

Another context in which I was experiencing a similar quality was in Dances of Universal Peace, in which sacred phrases from many different spiritual traditions are used as the basis for chants, and dance is used as a vehicle for engaging with the heart of the text. The dances were originally divised by Samuel L. Lewis (d. 1971), a Sufi Murshid and Rinzai Zen Master, who also studied deeply in the mystical traditions of Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity. I resonated very much with this multi-faith approach and the possibility of promoting 'Peace through the Arts'.

I stopped dancing Taizé chants with groups after a couple of years as I was getting uncomfortable with presenting material from only the Christian faith, and from a community with which I had no connection. I did find some good harmonised chants from South Africa with the appropriate feel (such as 'Thuma Mina'), but still from a Christian tradition.

That I wasn't discovering wonderfully harmonised texts from Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc. is really not surprising considering the musical traditions of the countries involved: The kind of harmony I was looking for is historically a phenomenon of Europe (up to the Caucasus) and Africa (South of the Sahara) and therefore mainly of Christian lands.

There must have been a point when I realised I would have to write them myself, and in retrospect it was a realisation I was pretty slow in coming to, as I have been writing music of various kinds for most of my life.

The fruits of my ensuing labours have now been published in several books: Some work better than others, some are easier to learn than others, some come complete with tried and tested dances, some don't. I have used a variety of musical styles in order to honour texts from a variety of traditions, and my criterion in their selection has been to use texts with which I am familiar, and with which I personally resonate, most of which I have worked with mainly in the context of Dances of Universal Peace. I will also continue to use the music of Jaques Berthier, now that I feel able to provide a balance of traditions.

Nickomo