ABOUT BLOOMINGTON EARLY MUSIC

​Established in 1992 by Stanley Ritchie and friends, Bloomington Early Music started out as an inspiring community concert series in Bloomington.

In the summer of 1994, a group of enterprising and talented students from Indiana University’s Historical Performance Institute (then named Early Music Institute) took their artistry into the same supportive community and formed the annual Bloomington Early Music Festival, which grew and quickly attracted national attention.

Since then, the festival and organization’s annual offerings have included some of the most significant performers and ensembles in the field today, many of whom have deep artistic roots in Bloomington as faculty, students, and alumni of the HPI. With a passionate commitment to a diverse approach to performance, the Festival has been strengthened through collaborations with performers of different styles and cherishes its support of emerging talent.
MISSION 
By catalyzing historically informed performance in south central Indiana, Bloomington Early Music enriches, educates, and inspires audiences and performers. 

Bloomington Early Music hosts the annual Bloomington Early Music Festival, a series of concerts celebrating performances and workshops by local, regional, and national performers and scholars. 
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VALUES 
  • We support music of the past millennium to the early twentieth century in a way that is historically informed 
  • We support emerging talent that is local, regional, national, and international 
  • We are committed to being societally engaged 
  • We support diversity through music that is global, multicultural, and multi-genre 
  • We aim to include multiple constituencies in both performers and audiences 
  • Collaborations form the core of our activities 
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GOALS 
  • To develop a strong board and staff structure, ensuring that the organization continues on a firm footing for the benefit of our artists and audiences 
  • To sustain, support and grow the annual Bloomington Early Music Festival
  • To promote and support early music programming throughout the year
  • To be a source of life-long educational activities
  • To develop new audiences through media production and dissemination of performances
PROJECTS WE SUPPORT
  • Partnerships include nonprofit fiscal sponsorship of local ensembles Alchymy Viols and Las Aves, as well as additional collaborations with the IU Historical Performance Institute and Latin American Music Center
  • The Bloomington Bach Cantata Project presents J.S. Bach's cantatas in performances modeled on his own. Under the direction of Daniel R. Melamed, the BBCP is a joint effort to share this repertory with students, professional musicians and Bloomington audiences.
  • Educational engagement activities in local communities. 
LEADERSHIP 

General Manager
Paulina Francisco

2020-2021 Board of Directors:
Alain Barker, President
Paul Borg 
Aaron Cain
Oscar Cañizares
Sally Gaskill, Treasurer 
Julia Lawson
Javier León
Dana Marsh
Suzanne Ryan Melamed, Vice President 
Stanley Ritchie 
Thomas Schaller, Secretary ​
Lynn Schwartzberg
Shelley Taylor