Fractio Modi is proud to offer visits to schools interested in live performance of early music. We have a range of programs to cater to schools both large and small, and are happy to discuss further request for themes or repertoire—if we can make it happen, we will!

The program will be led by one of our ensemble members with experience in the classroom:
    • Dr. Anne Levitsky, Lecturer in Music at the University of Queensland
    • Aaron Brown, PhD candidate in Music at the University of Queensland
    • Philip Griffin, teacher of classroom music at Camp Hill State Primary School (formerly guitar at Somerville and Anglican Church Grammar School)

PROGRAMS

MUSICAL WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES

This program explores female voices, both musical and poetic, in a range of geographical, temporal, and generic spaces. It moves across boundaries to demonstrate that, despite differences in time, location, and audience, medieval women were concerned with emotions that will seem very relatable to us today. These pieces are both sacred and secular; they are both by women and about women; and some of them were intended specifically for female performance. They offer us a glimpse at the everyday lives of their creators, performers, and subject matter—a rare window to the lives of people who do not often appear in the written sources of the medieval period. (All ensemble sizes)

SONGS OF LOVE AND WAR: THE CRUSADES

This program travels to medieval Spain, and includes music from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions. The Iberian Peninsula, famously multiracial and multi-religious in the Middle Ages, was the site of regular warfare between Muslim and Christian countries, with land passing in and out of the hands of kings and caliphs alike. Depending on the policies of the ruling sovereign, inhabitants of the conquered lands were either forcibly converted, or were allowed to continue practicing their own faiths. Due to the long history of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam on the Iberian Peninsula, three different literary and musical traditions were developed there, and the pieces on our program are drawn from these traditions. (All ensemble sizes)

MUSIC OF MEDIEVAL IBERIA:
​CHRISTIANITY, JUDAISM, AND ISLAM

This program travels to medieval Spain, and includes music from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions. The Iberian Peninsula, famously multiracial and multi-religious in the Middle Ages, was the site of regular warfare between Muslim and Christian countries, with land passing in and out of the hands of kings and caliphs alike. Depending on the policies of the ruling sovereign, inhabitants of the conquered lands were either forcibly converted, or were allowed to continue practicing their own faiths. Due to the long history of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam on the Iberian Peninsula, three different literary and musical traditions were developed there, and the pieces on our program are drawn from these traditions. (All ensemble sizes)

THE LANGUAGE OF SONG

The songs of the troubadours, twelfth-century poet-composers living and working in modern-day southern France, are known as the earliest extant form of vernacular secular poetry. Sources contemporary to these songs described the language they were written in, Occitan, as "chanz," or song—describing poetry written in Occitan as being "written in song." A lineage can be traced from their lyric poems to the pop songs of today, one that includes the works of Dante and Petrarch, the madrigals of Monteverdi, and the lieder of Schumann. This program introduces students to the music of the troubadours, as well as the myriad European repertoires that followed in their footsteps in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. (All ensemble sizes)

PRICING

$10.50 per student. Number of students per concert varies depending on how many members of our ensemble you would like. An exemption to the minimum student numbers may be available for small schools.

TRIO

Three members of the ensemble will visit your school. We require a minimum of 90 students for this choice.

QUARTET

Four members of the ensemble will visit your school. We require a minimum of 120 students for this choice.

QUINTET

Five members of the ensemble will visit your school. We require a minimum of 150 students for this choice.