
Ensemble & Music education charity Circle
Circle of Animals operates as a regularly rehearsing and
performing vocal ensemble, experimenting with the performance practice of medieval Christian liturgy.
As an educational charity, workshops and classes on these medieval practices, emphasizing orality and
improvisation, are also held occasionally, free of charge.
WHAT DO WE DO ?
Plainchant & Medieval liturgy
The ensemble explores mediaeval practices of music making to better understand the sources. The medieval understanding of sound, space and time is different from the modern one. The emphasis on memory, listening and improvisation changes our relationship to the text. We work with manuscript sources of plainchant from a wide variety of traditions, and explore their full liturgical context as a musical process.

Eastern & ‘Para-Gregorian’ chant
Around the year 1000, the division of “East” and “West” was not what it is today. With Constantinople as the centre of the Eastern Roman Empire, it was the main seat of the Church. Byzantine cantors were the teachers of their Western counterparts for centuries, notably as far afield as Yorkshire. Moreover, with waves of Byzantine diaspora into “magna graecea”, the Italianate traditions in Rome, Milan, Benevento, and Ravenna bore witness to the practices and modal concepts of this Greco-Roman patrimony. Circle of Animals approach the sources with deference to the oral cultures of the period.

What is often known as “Gregorian Chant” is a Romano-Frankish hybrid tradition with many layers of evolution over the centuries, and re-edited in modern times from those layers. Circle of Animals try to explore the root traditions as oral phenomena, and reconnect them with oral traditions alive today.

Ars Musica
The written sources of “embellished” plainchant (polyphonic or otherwise) reflect a tradition known as “Ars Musica” during the 11th-14thC. These reflect a mostly unwritten practice of “improvised” polyphony known as “organum”, “diaphonia”, and “discantus”. These written exemplars, largely unknown to modern musical culture, inform the ensemble’s practice of improvised embellishment of the plainchant.
Officium Divinum
The ‘Officium Divinum’ was the main form of liturgy in the mediaeval church, apart from the “Mass”. The very ancient tradition of a daily cycle of sung prayer became canonical in monastic communities in the 6thC, coordinated with various stations of the sun. While a major focus of “early music” groups is on the musical form of the “Mass”, Circle of Animals emphasize the need to study and practice the ‘Divine Office’ and it’s associated musical forms, to better understand mediaeval musical practices and transmission.
Vespers
The component of the ‘Officium’ most accessible to people, by virtue of it’s occurring at sunset. Circle of Animals is currently focusing on the Office of Vespers as the core framework around which we develop the oral practices historically associated with ecclesiastical music, according to various traditions of use.
“Historically Informed” – Performance Practice
In order to breath life into the written sources of a rich and colourful tradition spanning centuries, Circle of Animals try to approach the sources on their own terms and avoid anachronistic reliance on modern musical practices and theories. This allows for a much more profound appreciation of the musical world recorded in the Antiphoners, Breviaries, and other liturgical books.
Research
Unprecedented access to medieval manuscripts is now possible, as well as access to people and oral traditions which have traceable historical links to these written sources. An experimental approach to the realization of the many mysterious aspects of these repertoires is necessary while engaging in meaningful dialogue with the living oral traditions which share a cultural patrimony. The work of Circle of Animals functions as a performance-research group, whose research, rather than being purely historical, is intended to expand the practice of contemporary musicians. Under direction of Kosmo Love.

Kosmo Love
A lifelong musician,
Kosmo’s journey as a teacher began over 20 years ago after composition studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Christian Wolfe and Frank Denyer, when Kosmo formed the ensemble Cosmos Organon as a performance-research group, dedicated to teaching new compositional methods.
Further research into historical music pedagogy led to his research and practice of Plainchant, modal systems of singing, and the educational methods of the past that are based on vocal and keyboard improvisation.
He has been invited as a speaker at international conferences on Music Pedagogy from the Italian Institute of Applied Musicology, and the International Medieval Congress.
Schedule
Rehearsals: Every 2nd & 4th Wednesday of the month (except Dates in BOLD, when it is the 1st & 3rd Wednesday):
Booking is not essential but is appreciated. It’s free to book, donations welcome on the day.
Workshops
Workshops and classes on the techniques, performance practices and sources used in this historically
informed approach to ecclesiastical music are occasionally held at the Church of All Saints, Cifton,
Bristol, UK.
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