Play the aulos and make reeds with Lukas De Clerck, Stefan Hagel, Marco Sciascia, Melinda Maxwell, and Barnaby Brown.

Explore the extraordinary diversity of the aulos through practical work in reed-making, technique, improvisation, accompaniment, and ensemble performance. The course will include a wide range of auloi including unmechanised chromatic auloi based on instruments from Meroë in the kingdom of Kush, Louvre, Giglio, Berlin, and Poseidonia auloi.

You’ll make and adjust your own reeds, develop embouchure and breathing techniques, and explore how different aulos types relate to ancient scales, notation, and musical practice. Sessions with Stefan Hagel will examine the history and compatibility of different instruments and tuning systems, Melinda Maxwell will focus on ways of exploring and making new music for the Louvre aulos via improvisation and ultimately to composition combining  rhythmic structures, melodies and scales drawing on ancient Greek music and knowledge of classical, modern and contemporary musical sensibilities; while Lukas De Clerck will lead work on circular breathing, improvisation, and integrating the aulos into contemporary artistic practice. Marco Sciascia and Barnaby Brown will focus on reed making. Ensemble sessions with singers and instrumentalists, as well as movement and rhythm training sessions, situate our focused instrumental work in a vibrant and collaborative musical environment.

Together, we’ll explore how these remarkable instruments might expand current understanding of the ancient doublepipes and open up new musical possibilities.

You don’t need to own an aulos to join the course – we will be making reeds and constructing auloi based on surviving evidence, and you will be able to take an instrument home with you, if you would like one. This course is open to all, from experienced aulos players to total beginners.

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