BLEMF 2024
Early Music in Exile
May 19-25, 2024 | SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
BLEMF 2024: Early Music in Exile
From medieval times to the end of the early modern era, the marginalized poor, the once-powerful aristocrat, the devout pacifist, the rebellious activist, the ones born into the wrong faith or the wrong family, and many others who found themselves somehow outside the acceptable or tolerable, are found in countless histories of exile across regions and religions. Throughout Festival Wee, we explore music of such communities and individuals forced from their homeland as a consequence of war, political oppression, or religious expulsion; those living in religious and ethnic diaspora; and those surviving the paradox of exile “in place” under tyranny, incarceration, and forced conversion. Their stories—vividly brought to life through glorious music that displays resistance, defines identity, communicates faith and conviction, and conveys fear, loss, hope, and joy—have deep resonance today.
As BLEMF 2024 unfolds, join us for seven live concerts and four virtual performances, following in-depth preconcert discussions led by scholars and musicians–all available online. Enjoy the first midweek BLEM Community Showcase, the second BEMI Stanley Ritchie Youth Performance, and the US debut of the sensational Spanish vocal quartet, Cantoría. Each weekday afternoon, investigate everyday life in the early music era in six educational workshops for children and adults—from drink to dance, sword fighting, and early technologies. And delight in the vibrant imagination of children in our New Neighbors Art Exhibit during the evenings at FAR Center for Contemporary Arts.
Early Music in Exile celebrates the courage, hope, and resilience of those experiencing exile. It is our way to connect all of us—either through the distant past of our ancestors or in the present as we welcome new neighbors—who find the solace and joy of home in the music we make.
New Neighbors Children’s Art Exhibit
Evenings at FAR Center | May 19th — 24th
Throughout Festival Week, enjoy artwork created by children of families who have recently joined our community, having left their troubled homelands in other parts of the world. The exhibit will encircle the mainstage space at FAR Center from Opening Night, Sunday, May 19th through Friday night, May 24th. During evening performances, you will be surrounded by the visual art of young children who have had to leave their homes behind, while you are immersed in the music of those who had much the same experience so many centuries ago. We are grateful to our new neighbors for sharing their artwork with us and for contributing their talents to our festival. Thank you and welcome to Bloomington!
A partnership with Exodus Refugee Immigration
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
505 W. 4th Street
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY PSI IOTA XI / THE BLOOMINTON THRIFT SHOP
and by BLOOMINGTON FINE ART SUPPLY
BLEMF Events are FREE & OPEN TO ALL*
*except Tavern Hopping through Time, a 21+ workshop
Learn more about the festival’s offerings:
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All in-person concert venues are handicap-accessible. Pre-concert discussions take place prior in the same venue.
No tickets or RSVP necessary to attend!
Live Concerts & Pre-Concert Discussions will be livestreamed and available for streaming soon after the festival.
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All virtual concerts & preconcert discussions will be released for streaming on Opening Night, Sunday, May 19th, and will be available until June 4th. Enjoy them from the comfort of your own home, or from where ever you may be!
Or join us for free public screenings at Lotus Firebay, 530PM Monday-Thursday, with preconcert discussios at 5PM.
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Educational workshops, other than Tavern Hopping Through Time are designed for children and the young-at-heart. Kids under the age of 9 should be accompanied by an adult.
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On the day of the concert, “Watch concert!” and “Watch pre-concert discussion” buttons will appear below the concert listing. Click the button and you will be redirected to the Bloomington Early Music YouTube page.
For VIRTUAL CONCERTS & DISCUSSIONS, these buttons will take you directly to that video which will premiere at the posted start time.
For LIVE CONCERTS & DISCUSSIONS, you will be directed to the main YouTube page where you will click on the “Live Now” video at the posted start time. Concerts will also be live streamed on our Facebook page at the scheduled start time. The recording will then be available to watch on our Facebook video page.
Sunday, May 19
Opening Night!
8:00pm | Live Concert
Wit’s Folly
Émigré: French Refugees in the Early United States & the Music They Brought with Them
(Cleveland, OH) A musical journey of the Early American Republic during an all-but-unknown chapter of America’s early musical history, Émigré shares the complex stories of asylum seekers to the United States during the French and Haitian Revolutions. French nobles, planters, free people of all backgrounds, and the musicians they patronized—such as the clarinetist Mr. Beranger—sought safety from the violence of the French (1789–1799) and Haitian (1791–1804) Revolutions. Consequently, the United States experienced a French cultural explosion in the last decade of the 18th century as waves of self-imposed exiles poured into ports up and down the East Coast. Featuring works by André Grétry, Ignace Pleyel, Michel Yost, and others, Émigré takes its inspiration directly from historic concerts performed in America such as a 1793 benefit for an orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina and a 1798 performance featuring “the best musicians from Boston.”
Formed during the Spring of 2023, Wit’s Folly is an ensemble of highly experienced historical performance specialists based in Cleveland, Ohio that create engaging, energetic, and historically inspired performances using period instruments. Specializing in chamber music from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the members of Wit’s Folly are dedicated to delivering unique musical experiences that interpret the past, inspire the present, and illuminate the future.
Wit’s Folly is a BLEMF Emerging Ensemble.
7:15pm | Pre-Concert Discussion with Lindsay Weaver, specialist in 19th-century French music & culture and Wit’s Folly member, Dominic Giardino.
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
505 W. 4th Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
Monday, May 20
2:00pm | Presentation
What’s that Sound?
The Hurdy Gurdy!
Learn the fascinating history of this medieval wheel-crank instrument & the basics of technique from a world-renowned traditional musician and accomplished performer.
Presented by Tomás Lozano
Presentation runs 2:00pm-4:00pm
Lotus Fire Bay
105 S. Rogers Street
Singer, musician, composer, scholar and writer, Tomás Lozano was born in Barcelona, Spain to Andalusian parents. Known for his eclectic musicianship, Lozano's performance of Spain's traditional ballads stands out as iconic. He currently works and performs with Duo Krupoves Lozano, Salaam and Shakespear’s Ear. Lozano started to play Hurdy Gurdy in 1998 and has been very active in promoting the instrument in the United States through performances, educational presentations, and, over the last 12 years, a workshop in Brown County. He was part of the former band Crisol Luz and !Viva la Pepa!, one of the first bands in the States to use the instrument. For the past 14 years, he has played HG with the trio Daily Bread & Butter, performing traditional dance music from Europe.
5:30pm | Public Screening
Al Tayr Ensemble
The Journey of Abendino
(Madrid, Spain) Expelled from his birthplace of Granada by the command of the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the Sephardic Jew Abendino lived in exile and traveled across the Mediterranean to Sirkedji, Istanbul, where he eventually resettled. During his journey, Abendino came into contact with a variety of cultures, religions, and music, and survived many dangers along the way . In a musical narration of the movements and experiences of Abendino, Al Tayr Ensemble combines Medieval and Renaissance compositions from the Cancionero de Palacio and the Codex Squarcialupi, among other sources, with traditional music from the Sephardic, Andaluz, Balkan and Anatolian repertoire.
Al Tayr Ensemble is a recently-formed trio of performers based in Madrid that blends Western early music with Mediterranean traditions. Having met at the Capella de Ministrers Academy in Valencia, Spain, Olga Rodon and Alberto Espinosa recognized their shared passion for Early, Sephardic, and Mediterranean music, creating this project to explore these repertoires. The New York native Jon Wasserman soon joined the ensemble, offering a perfect complement to Rodon and Espinosa through his Jewish heritage and deep knowledge across these three areas. As individual performers and in collaboration with other groups, the members of Al Tayr Ensemble have participated in numerous international festivals and concert series in Spain, France, the United States, Germany, and Portugal. The ensemble’s first project, “The Journey of Abendino”, emerged out of thorough research of this repertoire combined with a deep interest in history.
Al Tayr Ensemble is a BLEMF Emerging Ensemble.
5:00pm | Pre-Concert Discussion (screened) with Jermaine Butler, ethnomusicologist and specialist in Middle Eastern traditional music & culture, and Jon Wasserman & Alberto Espinosa.
Screening at Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers Street
May 19 | Released at www.BLEMF.org
CO-SPONSORED BY LINDA HANDELSMAN
and by THE LOU AND SYBIL MERVIS CHAIR IN THE STUDY OF JEWISH CULTURE, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
and THE PEARL SCHWARTZ PROGRAM IN JEWISH CULTURE AND THE ARTS FUND of the ROBERT A. AND SANDRA S. BORNS JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Pearl Schwartz Program in Jewish Culture and the Arts Fund
8:00pm | Live Concert
Forgotten Clefs
Surviving Inquisition
(Bloomington, IN) Exploring Spanish and Sephardic music over a 400-year span, Surviving Inquisition traces the journey of Sephardic Jews from the 13th century in Alfonso el Sabio’s Castile, through the early years of the Inquisition in late 15th century Catholic Spain, to Italy in the early 17th century, where many Jews lived following expulsion. Using European and Arabic instruments, Surviving Inquisition intertwines traditional Sephardic tunes with Catholic music from Medieval manuscripts; sets music of the likely converso Juan del Encina (1468-1530) alongside that of the Spanish Catholics Juan de Anchieta (1462-1523) and Christobal de Morales (1500-1553); and moves between secular Italian songs and sacred Hebrew psalms in music of the Jewish composer Salamone Rossi (1570-1630), living in diaspora in early 17th-century Mantua, Italy.
Forgotten Clefs Renaissance Wind Ensemble, founded in 2014 in Bloomington, Indiana, specializes in the European wind band repertoire of the Renaissance and early Baroque. Highlights of the past decade include a tour of Montana with the Musikanten Montana, performances at the North Carolina HIP Festival, the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, VA, with the Cathedral’s Schola Cantorum, and under the direction of Alan Lewis and his Calvary Schola in Pittsburgh, PA with the choral-instrumental music of William Byrd. Well-known for their community service and educational outreach in the wider Bloomington region, programs in the 2023-2024 season include “Pipers of the Prophecy,” “Ferrara’s Musical Feast,” and “The Very Last Castle,” in addition to their annual program, “Shawms and Stories” which brings musical storytelling to schools, libraries, and community centers across South central Indiana with support from the Brown County Community Foundation and Indiana Arts Commission.
7:15pm | Pre-Concert Discussion with Renaissance music scholar Giovanni Zanovello and member of Forgotten Clefs, multi-instrumentalist C. Keith Collins
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
505 W. 4th Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
SPONSORED BY PAUL W. BORG
CO-SPONSORED BY THE LOU AND SYBIL MERVIS CHAIR IN THE STUDY OF JEWISH CULTURE, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
and THE PEARL SCHWARTZ PROGRAM IN JEWISH CULTURE AND THE ARTS FUND of the ROBERT A. AND SANDRA S. BORNS JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Pearl Schwartz Program in Jewish Culture and the Arts Fund
Tuesday, May 21
2:00pm | Workshop
Dance the Flamenco!
¡Baila!
Lean into the rhythms, movements, style & history of this perennially popular dance form derived from Roma, Jewish, Arabic & Spanish folkloric traditions. Returning for the second time, this popular workshop starts with the basics of footwork, hand gestures, and castanets in an easy-to-understand and accessible approach by a deeply experienced professional flamenco instructor and longtime member of the Bloomington community. It’s as much fun to watch as to dance, so come along whether you take to the floor or sit and enjoy!
Led by Bette Lucas of Bette Lucas Dance Studio
Workshop runs 2:00pm-4:00pm
Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers Street
Bette Lucas has been teaching Flamenco and Bellydance for many years. She directs the troupes ¡Baila! ¡Baila! Flamenco and The Caravanserai Dancers. She is a flamenco teacher, dancer, and perpetual student, and has had many classes with top flamenco dancers both in Spain and at Festival Flamenco Albuquerque.
5:30pm | Public Screening
Anders Muskens
Incarcerated Music: Sonatas by C.F.D. Schubart
(Weilheim, Germany) Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739-1791) was a German composer, organist, keyboardist, music theorist, poet, journalist, and dedicated activist. Praised by Charles Burney who heard him play organ in Ludwigsburg, Schubart is mostly remembered today as the author of the poem "Die Forelle," which Franz Schubert set to music years later. In an era before true freedom of speech in Germany, Schubart’s published attack on the improprieties of the Jesuits led to his arrest and decade-long confinement in the severe conditions of the Hohenasperg Fortress. During his incarceration, Schubart authored the important treatise "Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst,” (“Ideas for an Aesthetics of Musical Art”) and wrote music and poetry, much of which in the "Sturm und Drang" style. For his political and religious views, Schubart was persecuted: exiled from society, and confined to a cell within a mighty, cold, stone fortress. Yet, in the prevailing spirit of the 18th century, his captors showed a level of Enlightenment leniency and allowed him to publish his art despite his status as a convicted prisoner.
This concert was recorded from within the Hohenasperg Fortress where Schubart was imprisoned and wrote much of the music we will hear performed.
Anders Muskens is a Canadian early keyboard specialist and ensemble director, active as an international artist in North America and Europe. He completed an Associate Diploma (ARCT) in modern piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto and a Masters in Fortepiano at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. He is currently a doctoral candidate in musicology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen where he is researching the connection between rhetorical acting and music in the long eighteenth century. He has performed internationally at festivals and venues including the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the National Music Centre, and the London International Festival of Early Music. Muskens is the founder of Das Neue Mannheimer Orchester, an international initiative to revive the music of the Mannheim School in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Special thanks to the Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg/Museum Hohenasperg for allowing Anders access to the museum to make his recording in the prison where Schubart was incarcerated.
Anders Muskens is a BLEMF Emerging Artist.
5:00pm | Pre-Concert Discussion (screened) with Michael Weinstein-Reiman (University of Wisconsin-Madison), keyboardist and specialist in the German Enlightenment, and Anders Muskens
Screening at Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers Street
May 19 | Released at www.BLEMF.org
8:00pm | Live Concert
The Raritan Players
Jewish Musicians in 18th-century London
(New Brunswick, NJ) Eighteenth-century London was an especially cosmopolitan city, and a relatively tolerant one, which led Jewish musicians from across Europe—from Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Italian, and Eastern descent—to move there. The Jewish community adopted musical customs of the greater London scene while maintaining their own musical traditions. By the second half of the century, Jewish musicians were performing in opera houses, public concerts, and at the English royal court alongside the leading Christian musicians of their day. While some managers and institutions were accommodating, Jewish musicians sometimes experienced clear anti-Jewish sentiment. By exploring the careers of Jewish figures such as the cellists Jacob and James Cervetto and the singer-composer Harriet Abrams, this concert sheds new light on the themes of exile, diaspora, belonging, and music as a site of self-expression among Jews in eighteenth-century London.
The Raritan Players explore lost performance practices and repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries through engagement with period instruments and new research in musicology. Formed in 2014 and named for the historic Raritan Valley, the area around New Brunswick, New Jersey, the ensemble seeks to breathe new life into untold stories from the musical past. The Raritan Players have revived music and practices associated with little-known figures such as Sara Levy, Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy, Elizabeth Graeme, and Ignatius Sancho. Past recipients of grants from Chamber Music America, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, and the American Philosophical Society, among others, the Raritan Players' performances and recordings have garnered praise as “simply mesmerizing" (Early Music America) "enchanting" (Classics Today), and an “unexpected treasure” (American Record Guide). Their recording Sisters, Face to Face: The Bach Legacy in Women's Hands received the 2018 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society for contributions to historical performance. With Rebecca Cypess (Keyboards), Eve Miller (Cello), Parastoo Heidarinejad & Miranda Zirnbauer (Violin), and Ian Pomerantz & Anne Slovin (Voice).
7:15pm | Pre-Concert Discussion with 18th-century British music specialist Devon Nelson and Raritan Players director Rebecca Cypess
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
505 W. 4th Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
SPONSORED BY SUZANNE RYAN MELAMED and DANIEL R. MELAMED
CO-SPONSORED BY THE LOU AND SYBIL MERVIS CHAIR IN THE STUDY OF JEWISH CULTURE, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
and THE PEARL SCHWARTZ PROGRAM IN JEWISH CULTURE AND THE ARTS FUND of the ROBERT A. AND SANDRA S. BORNS JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Pearl Schwartz Program in Jewish Culture and the Arts Fund
Wednesday, May 22
2:00pm | Workshop
Sword Fighting on the High Seas
Blow me down!
Fight like a pirate without hurting a fly with a certified, professional stage combat instructor! In our most active and popular workshop, at BLEMF for the third year in a row, kids and adults learn moves and postures, get comfortable with basic dueling choreography, and engage in battle with a partner, thrusting and slashing their way to victory. If you dare to enter the pirate’s den for this seafaring adventure, you get to keep your own (foam!) sword to vanquish your foes at home or in distant lands!
Led by Andrés X. López
Workshop runs 2:00pm-4:00pm
Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers Street
Andrés received his Ph.D. from Indiana University where he examined the transformation of stage combat in nineteenth century England. Also an advanced actor/ combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors, Andrés holds certifications in all eight weapon disciplines. He has taught stage combat to people of all ages at workshops and in classrooms for over ten years both in the United States and internationally, and he has been the fight choreographer for several productions, including Vinegar Tom, Water by the Spoonful, Streamers, Cyrano de Bergerac, Don Giovanni, and Carmen. Andrés has also lectured nationally and internationally at universities, organizations, and theatres on the historical and contemporary practice of stage combat.
5:30pm | Public Screening
Zoe Vandermeer
Bards of the British Isles
(Vernon, CT) A beautiful if troubling illustration of the debilitating effects of religious and political persecution, Bards of the British Isles presents music of the late 16th century to the late 18th century from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The music, for harp and soprano voice, was composed by harpers and about harpers, as well as other individuals who suffered under the tyranny of Queen Elizabeth I and Edward I. During Elizabeth I’s ongoing religious persecution of the Catholic church in Wales, many Welsh Pencerddau (head bards) were acting as covert emissaries of Recusants in the Welsh nobility, helping to spread news about secret Catholic masses and pilgrimages. And in an attempt to control Ireland, the Virgin Queen issued a proclamation to “hang harpers, wherever found, and destroy their instruments.” Between 1650 and 1660, Oliver Cromwell ordered the destruction of harps and also organs throughout Ireland in an effort to prevent a surge of nationalism—in Dublin alone, 500 harps were seized and burned. Harpers were reduced to becoming itinerant musicians, begging for a living wherever they could. The music these harpers composed and sang provides a powerful view of the many challenges they faced—from avoiding death by hanging to simply putting food on the table, and from maintaining artistic integrity to efforts to keep the legacy of the Bard alive.
Zoe Vandermeer is a coloratura soprano, Welsh triple harpist and composer. Harp performances include the Connecticut Early Music Festival, Rio International Harp Festival Brasil, American Harp Society, HarpCon2003 Bloomington, and Gotham Early Music Scene. She has performed her original, one-woman baroque pastiche opera at Spain’s International Festival de Deia, Glasgow Early Music Festival, Nairn Theatre Scotland, and NY International Theatre Fringe Festival. She sang in Carnegie Hall as First Place Winner of the B. Alexander International Vocal Competition, won Second Place in the 2023 London Classical Competition, and received the Silver Medal 2022 Global Music Awards. Her award-winning CD, Angel’s Wine, the Songs of John Dowland released in 2002, and her new baroque soprano & harp album is forthcoming from Centaur Records.
5:00pm | Pre-Concert Discussion (screened) with early music specialist and multi-instrumentalist C. Keith Collins and Zoe Vandermeer
Screening at Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers Street
May 19 | Released at www.BLEMF.org
8:00pm | Live Concert
BLEMF Community Showcase
Bloomington takes the stage!
Bloomington has long been an exceptionally musical community with a quantity, quality, and diversity of musicians that far exceeds our fair share. In honor of our city’s musical legacy and especially the enduring tradition of community-centered Early Music, we have opened our stage to our neighbors—both old and new—for a night of local talent. We are especially excited to present two of Bloomington’s newest residents, whom we met through our friends at Exodus Refugee Immigration—Fares Sandouri from Aleppo, Syria, and Zarif Zahir and his family from Kabul, Afghanistan. We are grateful to them for joining us and welcome them to our extended musical family! We also have a chance for the audience to join in with a Community Sing-Along midway through the evening, as we share with you some of the most evocative—and relatively easy to sing!—music of the distant past. And look out for the quartet of BLEM staffers as well, all highly accomplished musicians in addition to the amazing work they do for our organization.
Featuring:
French madrigals with Caio Guimarães Lopes, Kathryn Davidson, Miggi Anganco & Eric Meincke
Taylor Diclemente with early lute repertoire
Classical Arabic and songs of Aleppo from Fares Sandouri on voice & bendir drum
David Esarey on the Hurdy Gurdy
Premiere community acapella vocal ensemble, Voces Novae
Community Sing-Along with Carolann Buff
The BLEM X-tet, our talented staff in a vocal quartet with cornetto!
Travis Whaley performing German tablature on harpsichord
Traditional Afghan music with renowned Afghan musician Zarif Zahid, harmonium & voice, and his family: Milad Jalili, flute; Shadab Jalili, tabla; and Mahnoor Jalili, voice
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
505 W. 4th Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
Thursday, May 23
2:00pm | Workshop
Cocoa Crazy
Xocolatyl to Hot Chocolate
Take a tour through the history of the beans & beverage in the Americas from its earliest uses in indigenous Central American ritual to popular beverage adaptations by Europeans. Enjoy original recipes and sample international varieties along your chocolate journey!
Led by Christopher Armijo & Steven M. Warnock
Workshop runs 2:00pm-4:00pm
Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers Street
A PARTNERSHIP WITH MOTHER HUBBARD’S CUPBOARD & PICCOLI DOLCI
5:30pm | Public Screening
Assai Ad Libitum
The Great Fear: Musical Exiles of the French Revolution
(Greensboro, NC & Williamsburg, VA) Exploring music of the period between the French Revolution (1789-1799) and the Battle of Waterloo (1815), The Great Fear follows the migration, exaltation, and degradation of Pierre Louis Hus-Desforges (1773-1838), Nicolas Méhul (1765-1817), Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George (1745 – 1799), and Hélène de Montgeroult (1764- 1836). By bringing together music of four French composers affected not only by the Revolution and the downfall of Napoleon, but also by family lineage, gender, and race, this program gives voice to the circumstances and events that led to political, social, and cultural exile during this violent and precarious time.
Assai Ad Libitum is a newly formed historical ensemble passionate about exploring and performing rare and unrecorded works. Based on the Southeastern coast of the US, the trio comprises Patricia García Gil (fortepiano), Sophie Genevieve Lowe (baroque violin), and Ryan Lowe (baroque cello). Patricia García Gil is a Spanish keyboardist with international accolades in performance and pedagogy on both modern and historical keyboard instruments. A BLEMF 2023 Emerging Artist, she has recently completed her DMA in Historical Keyboards at University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Baroque violinist Sophie Genevieve Lowe hails from South Dakota, studied at the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music in London, UK, and has appeared on concert stages across the UK and North America. Recently relocated to the US from London after graduating with honors from the Trinity Conservatoire of Music, Welsh cellist Ryan Lowe has performed extensively in the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and the United States. Sophie and Ryan regularly perform as a duet at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia.
Assai Ad Libitum is a BLEMF Emerging Ensemble.
5:00pm | Pre-Concert Discussion (screened) with Kirby Haugland, specialist in music of the Napoleonic era, and members of Assai Ad Libitum
Screening at Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers Street
May 19 | Released at www.BLEMF.org
CO-SPONSORED BY THE CENTER FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
8:00pm | Live Concert
Bach & Beethoven Experience
The Story of Pa I Sha
(Chicago, IL) Following three generations of BBE Artistic Director Brandi Berry Benson’s own Chickasaw ancestors, this musical journey begins with her fourth great-grandmother, Pa I Sha, who walked the Trail of Tears (or the Removal). The program moves on to Pa I Sha’s daughter Mary, marriage to a Civil War soldier, their nine children, and their experience as an interracial family forced to live in a tent outside of town. The final stage of the program addresses the discrimination that led this family and later generations to deny their full degree of Indian blood or to deny their indigenous identity altogether. Using melodies of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations, the performance features a narrator/vocalist (in English with some Chickasaw language), traverso, Native American flute, period strings, and Chickasaw percussion.
Founded in 2009, the Bach & Beethoven Experience brings artists together to collaborate and transform the classical concert experience through classical, folk, and new music using period instruments. Hailed as “thrilling...charming... performed with such grace, joy and sincerity that a watcher and listener had to be won over" (Bloomington Herald Times), the BBE has performed across the U.S. including at Baroque on Beaver Island Festival, Early Music Academy in Ann Arbor, the Green Mill, Martyrs’, 4th Presbyterian downtown, the Dame Myra Hess series, Boston Early Music Festival fringe series, the Beat Hotel in Boston, and in residency at the Old Town School of Folk Music. The BBE has released three albums, A Gaelic Summer (2019), An Appalachian Summer (2019), and Chicago Stories (2021).
7:15pm | Pre-concert Discussion with Brandie Macdonald, Executive Director of the IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and BBE Music Director Brandi Berry Benson, both members of the Chickasaw Nation
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
505 W. 4th Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
SPONSORED BY HARLAN LEWIS & DORIS WITTENBURG
Friday, May 24
Dr. Kirby Haugland is a visiting assistant professor in the musicology department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His research focuses on relationships surrounding musical creation and performance. This interest manifests in subjects ranging from early film music and contemporary composer John Adams to technologies of 18th-century theater stages. He is a talented trumpet player—if an out of practice one—and he serves as Finance & Administration Manager for Bloomington Early Music.
2:00pm | Workshop
Making Music Books
Printing Presses, Quills & Ink
Learn about early printing technology from a replica 15th-century Gutenberg printing press, then join in a fun quill & ink making activity to create your own tools for writing the old-fashioned way!
Because sharpening feathers for quills requires a blade, we will have ready-made quills for the kids with a demonstration on cutting them down, and the opportunity for adults to make their own quills at a separate table.
Led by Lilly Library & Kirby Haugland
Workshop runs 2:00pm-3:30pm
Lilly Library
1200 E. 7th Street
SPONSORED BY RICHARD MATTSSON and NOEL WILKINS
A PARTNERSHIP WITH THE LILLY LIBRARY AT INDIANA UNVERSITY
5:00pm | Workshop
Tavern Hopping through Time
Third Round!
Back for the third year, this most popular Happy Hour workshop for adults (21+) will take you back in time to listen, learn & be merry in early modern tavern life. Veteran mixologist and 18th-century musicologist Devon Nelson will take you through the ever-interesting history of music & drink with a presentation, demonstration, sing along & tasting! This year, explore the wonders, uses, and fun of rum with centuries-old drink recipes while you listen to early music written for drinking. Relax, listen, and imbibe at the end of a long and wonderful week of Early Music in Bloomington!
Led by Devon Nelson
Workshop runs 5:00pm-6:30pm
$15 at the door | 21+ only
Your $15 admission covers the cost of alcohol for this event.
John Waldron Arts Center
122 S. Walnut Street
Devon Nelson is visiting professor of music in musicology at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Their research focuses on Music and antiquarianism in Britain, music printing, early-modern music and dance, and connections between music and drink. Devon has presented at the Historical Performance: Theory, Practice, and Interdisciplinarity conference at IU, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference, and the Utrecht Early Music Festival's STIMU symposium, where they won the STIMU Young Scholar Award. Devon earned a Bachelor of Music from Roosevelt University in Chicago and their PhD in musicology with a minor in historical performance from Indiana University, where they were awarded a 2017-2018 Indiana University President’s Diversity Dissertation Fellowship.
8:00pm | Live Concert
Musica Pacifica
Dancing in the Isles
(San Francisco, CA) During the 18th century, Ireland, Scotland, and England all experienced similar social changes and hardships that forced many of the poorest members of society to effectively become exiles from their native lands. Scotland experienced the "highland clearance", the English had the "enclosure movement", and finally, the Irish had the "first wave" of migration to the United States. Countless subsistence farmers were forced to migrate to other regions, countries, and even continents, leaving their homes and livelihoods behind. Showcasing some of the music that would have been made and heard by these immigrants both before and after they left their homeland, this program features folk tunes and popular dance music from the British Isles in the eighteenth century as well as descendant tunes from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Recently celebrating their 30th anniversary, Musica Pacifica is widely recognized as one of America’s premier baroque ensembles, lauded for both “dazzling virtuosity” and “warm expressiveness.” They have been described as “some of the finest baroque musicians in America” (American Record Guide) and “among the best in the world” (Alte Musik Aktuell). Musica Pacifica has performed on such prestigious concert stages as the Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, Music Before 1800 and the Frick Collection (NY), the Getty Museum (Los Angeles), the Cleveland Art Museum, Dumbarton Oaks (Washington, DC), Pittsburgh Renaissance and Baroque, Seattle Early Music Guild, Early Music Society of the Islands (Victoria, BC) and the Houston Early Music Society, as well as multiple appearances on the San Francisco Early Music Society series at home. They have performed at festivals in Germany and Austria, and have been featured on German National Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, and National Public Radio’s “Performance Today” and “Harmonia.” Musica Pacifica’s ten CDs on the Virgin Classics, Dorian, Solimar, and Navona labels, including their iconic “Dancing in the Isles—folk and Baroque music from England, Ireland, and Scotland”—have won numerous national and international awards.
7:15pm | Pre-concert Discussion with folklorist Caroline VerMeulen and Musica Pacifica director, Judy Linsenberg, and co-director, Alexa Haynes-Pilon
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
505 W. 4th Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
SPONSORED BY CATHLEEN CAMERON in honor of JOANNA BLENDULF
CO-SPONSORED BY DOLORES RYAN & KEVIN HAINESWORTH in memory of DONALD P. RYAN
CO-SPONSORED BY STEPHEN and JO ELLEN HAM
and by THE DEPARTMENT OF FOLKLORE & ETHNOMUSICOLOGY, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Saturday, May 25
Youth Performance
5:00pm | Live Concert
The BEMI Players
The Stanley Ritchie Youth Performance
(Bloomington, IN) Join us for the second annual mainstage concert by members of the Bloomington Early Music Immersion program. A showcase of new skills and newly discovered talents, the BEMI Players performance is the highpoint of a week of daylong instruction and activities introducing middle-school aged string players to historical technique and repertoire from the Baroque era. A partnership between Bloomington Early Music and the Historical Performance Institute of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, with support from the Smithville Charitable Foundation, the Bloomington Arts Commission, and Early Music America’s 2023 Engagement Award, BEMI is free to participants and fun for all!
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
2023 ENGAGEMENT AWARD
Closing Night!
8:00pm | Live Concert
Cantoría
The "Cancionero de Palacio" & Other Songs for Exiles
(Murcia, Spain) Musicologist and Catalan priest Higini Anglés' most significant work of recovery, apart from the music of the composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, was his edition of the Cancionero del Palacio (Palace Songbook), a book that compiles music from the time of the Catholic Monarchs and the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America. The Catholic Monarchs represent a period of splendor but also great trauma for many communities in Spanish history. Their rule marks the conquest of Granada in 1492 and the expulsion of the Sephardic and Morisco communities over the subsequent decades. Anglés' musicological work occurred in context of another great trauma in Spanish history, the Franco regime, during which many from the elite and learned Spanish musical world were forced out of the country. Cooperative research and discussion of this repertoire–albeit at a great distance–is understood to have helped these 20th-century political exiles reconnect to their homeland in a meaningful way.
The Cancionero de Palacio was performed in halls, palaces, and squares during the conquest of Granada, that era when a relatively peaceful coexistence dramatically ended with the expulsion and exile of the Jewish and Andalusian communities from the Iberian Peninsula. These events led to an obsession in Hispanic society with blood purity and the ability to prove one's status as a "good Christian." Our musical program explores not only the situation or contrast between the well-being of the conquerors and the suffering of the exiles, with music related to the taking of Granada and the celebrations that followed, but also the obsession with purity and cleanliness–both religious and racial–in the aftermath. In the program, you will hear some pieces related to the purifying and punishing fire, evoking hell and the Inquisition, recalling the threats to those who did not follow the precepts of the Catholic Church, as well as the purity of blood, embodied also by the purity of the Virgin Mary. These songs coexisted, rather uncomfortably to our ears today, with festive melodies and songs of love and yearning for the land of the Cancionero del Palacio.
Founded in 2016, Cantoría is a Spanish vocal quartet specializing in music of the Iberian Golden Age. Known for their distinctive, fresh approach to performance, the ensemble’s superb musicianship, youthful energy, and vibrant stage presence create a powerful, engaged connection between early music and modern audiences, earning them numerous young artist awards and artist residencies in their earlier years, including the Ambronay EEEmerging program (Ambronay, France; 2018), Les Quotidiennes de La Cité de la Voix (Vézelay, France; 2018), and Il Centro di Musica Antica della Fondazione Ghislieri (Pavia, Italy; 2019). Today, Cantoría performs frequently across Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Germany, the UK, Poland, and Croatia, and is headlining at some of Europe’s most prestigious festivals and venues. Their August 2023 mainstage concert at the Utrecht Early Music Festival was declared a “triumph” by El País, and their 2024 calendar includes debuts at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw in April and London’s Wigmore Hall in October. Cantoría first CD, Mateo Flecha “El Viejo”: Ensaladas (2022), was hailed by Le Monde as “magnificent” and has earned no fewer than three major awards: the Diapason Découverte Award (France), the Schallplattenkritik Preis (Germany), and the Melómano d’Oro (Italy). Cantoría’s BLEMF 2024 performance marks their US debut.
7:15pm | Pre-Concert Discussion with Carolann Buff, early music choral scholar & BLEM board member, and Cantoría music director, Jorge Losana
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
CO-SPONSORED BY LINDA HANDELSMAN
This program is supported in part by a PICE Mobility Grant from Acción Cultural Española.
