The 18th International Academy of Sacred Music takes place from May 9 to 17 2008. The Academy was founded in 1992 and has remained under the direction of its founder, the British specialist Michael Procter, ever since.

Since 2005 the Academy is based in the Istituto Artigianelli, a beautifully converted monastery on the Fondamente Zattere. Here the Academy members are housed, in excellent modern bedrooms, each with its bathroom and telephone. Here, too, the six hours of daily intensive rehearsal are held. The Istituto also encloses the 15th century church of Santa Maria della Visitazione, where our daily rehearsals take place. Evening meals are taken communally at the nearby Ristorante San Trovaso, directly adjacent to the monastery. Prices for accommodation etc. are given below.

The Academy is designed as a participatory course of the highest possible level, for choirmasters, church musicians and experienced choir singers. Its repertoire is always drawn specifically from the Venetian, and mainly from the Marcan (San Marco) sacred music of the 16th century. Since 1994 the Venice Academy has had the unique privilege of singing the Solemn High Mass at St Mark's.

In 2009 the Academy celebrates the 400th anniversary of the death of Giovanni Croce. Born 1556 in Chioggia, Croce probably sang as a boy in the choir of St Mark's, where he was certainly an adult singer by 1586. He became vice-maestro in 1592 and was appointed maestro di cappella in 1603. He was a priest all his adult life and had what seems to have been a sinecure at S. Maria Formosa where he was almost always absent from meetings because of his musical duties. A collected edition of his sacred music is in preparation, edited by Michael Procter, Prof. Richard Charteris (Sydney) and Martin Morell (New York). His output is especially striking in the area of double-choir repertoire, but the surviving music ranges from 4- and 5-voice to 12- and even 16-voice music, and includes several books of motets, two collections of Lamentations, music for Terce, Vespers and Compline, two Requiem Masses and a mass for four choirs apparently commissioned by Ferdinand II during a visit to Venice in 1598.

The 2009 Academy will concentrate on music by Croce and his colleagues at San Marco. The annual concert will this year take place in Chioggia where a Festival Dinner and other musical activities will celebrate one of the town's most famous offspring. The ensemble Hofkapelle will perform Croce's Requiem I as a mass of requiem for the composer in San Marco, and join with the Academy to perform the 4-choir Missa Jubilate Deo in S. Maria Formosa, as well as the annual High Mass in the Basilica. Details subject to confirmation.