Congratulations to the more than 100 musicians who graced our wonderful town again this year for the 2019 Bloomington Early Music Festival!  Your performances were remarkable in range and exquisitely presented. 

Many thanks, especially to our producing partners - Early Music America and the Historical Performance Institute at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.  We were also thrilled to host events by the American Lute Society, American Viola da Gamba Society, and happy to partner with IU’s Latin American Music Center to produce La purpura de la rosa, the first known opera in the Americas.

Festival photos, recordings, and videos will be posted in the next few weeks, as we continue to celebrate a banquet of events – 13 concerts, 3 radio features, and 3 workshops, and many other activities over the course of 8 days.

The Bloomington Early Music Festival (BLEMF) and the Historical Performance Institute (HPI) at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music are pleased to announce the continuation of a major partnership with Early Music America (EMA) this year that includes an expansive series of performances by emerging artists and college ensembles from across the United States and Canada. Performances and workshops are offered in beautiful downtown locations and on the IU campus. All events this year are free and open to the public.

Soloist Joyce Chen will 
perform as a Showcase ArtistThe 2019 festival commences with concerts highlighting the fourth-annual international conference, "Historical Performance: Theory, Practice and Interdisciplinarity," presented by the HPI and convened by its director, Dana Marsh. The Festival will also welcome performances and activities hosted by the Lute Society of America and the Viola da Gamba Society of America, an artistic collaboration with the IU Latin American Music Center, a seminar on music entrepreneurship led by prominent figures in the field, and a series of community workshops at the Monroe County History Center. All events this year are free and open to all.

Soloist Vincent Lauer will 
perform as a Showcase Artist“Following both the carefully planned and serendipitous successes of last year’s collaboration between BLEMF, the HPI, and Early Music America, it’s truly wonderful that we can explore and exercise this special partnership further still.” said Marsh, who also serves as a member of the BLEMF board. “This will create greater enrichment for students and emerging artists in historical performance attending from across North America; and, no less, the Bloomington community will benefit considerably from these free cultural offerings.”

Byron Shenkman will perform
works by Clara SchumannTaking place from May 17-25, 2019, the Festival will welcome IU alumnus fortepianist Byron Schenkman, who will lead an ensemble in a performance of works by Clara Schumann in celebration of the 200th anniversary of her birth. Keeping the IU connection alive, the festival will partner with the Lute Society of America by presenting a solo performance by one of Bloomington’s international artists, IU professor and lutenist Nigel North. The annual concert in the Monroe County Courthouse rotunda will be performed by local ensemble Las Aves, following their recent international debut in Ecuador at the Festival International de Musica Sacra de Quito.

Rezonance Baroque Ensemble 
Two Emerging Artists showcase events presented by Early Music America will feature a selection of emerging artists in North America: Aperi Animam, a vocal ensemble from Milwaukee, WI; Joyce Chen, harpsichord, from Princeton; NJ, Vincent Lauzer, recorder, from Montréal, Canada; and Rezonance Baroque Ensemble, from Toronto, Canada.

Aperi AnimamThe annual EMA Young Performers Festival will offer a series of five concerts over three days by some of the leading early music programs in North America: The Oberlin Baroque (Oberlin, OH); McGill University Baroque Ensemble (Montreal, Canada); USC Thornton Collegium Workshop (Los Angeles, CA); and the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble (Baltimore, MD).  In addition, the series will present The Brandenburg Project, a youth period ensemble from the Community Music School of Ann Arbor, MI.

The Brandenburg Project“Just as composers relish a second performance of a new work, Early Music America is thrilled to be able to return to Bloomington for a second year,” said Karin Brookes, Executive Director of Early Music America. “BLEMF and HPI have been such creative and supportive partners with EMA, and we are all excited by the rich experiences planned for participants and community and audience members.”

Nigel North will perform 
a solo recitalAs the final concert of the 2019 Bloomington Early Music Festival, students and alumni from the Historical Performance Institute, directed by renowned early music soprano, Nell Snaidas, will produce and perform a concert version of the one-act opera La Púrpura de la rosa (The Blood of the Rose), the first known opera to be composed and performed in the Americas. The performance is co-sponsored by the IU Latin American Music Center and offers Bloomington audiences a truly unique opportunity to experience a significant historical moment in the Americas.  

The Peabody Renaissance Ensemble“The Bloomington Early Music Festival continues to blossom in the heart of Bloomington,” said Alain Barker, president of Bloomington Early Music, “offering the community and region an opportunity to experience exquisite music from past centuries up close. None of this would happen without the spirit of collaboration and support that comes from so many individuals and organizations, both on and off the IU campus. For this, we are very grateful.”
The Instrument Petting Zoo, perhaps the most accessible part of the festival for early music enthusiasts of all ages, will be presented at the Bloomington Farmer’s Market. As part of the day’s festivities, the Bloomington Quarry Morris Dancers will once again offer a performance on the City Hall Plaza. 

Instruments at the Petting Zoo!WFIU Public Radio, the festival’s primary media partner, will feature many recordings from the festival through its nationally syndicated program, Harmonia.
Information about performances and activities surrounding the Festival this year can be found online via blemf.org and on social media. For more information, please contact the festival organizers at office@blemf.org. 

THE PARTNERS
Bloomington Early Music supports, encourages, and produces historically informed performance arts in Bloomington and South-Central Indiana.
Early Music America serves and strengthens the early music community in North America through grants, scholarships, and resources that help everyone in the field at any level to explore, engage, and connect with early music and one another.
The Historical Performance Institute at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music offers students the highest standard of instrumental and vocal training along with a thorough grounding in the academic reference tools of the profession – comprehensive theoretical, critical, historiographical and practical skills: to study, interpret, and perform period-specific music of the past millennium.
WFIU Public Radio serves south-central Indiana with cultural programming and NPR News. WFIU also extends the educational mission of Indiana University across America and beyond as the producer and distributor of programs including Harmonia. For more than two decades, Harmonia has been a chief destination for early music on dozens of U.S. broadcast outlets, and online at harmoniaearlymusic.org.
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Funding for the festival comes from grants, individual contributions, corporation sponsorship, and organizational partnerships. Sources include the Indiana University Arts and Humanities Council, the Bloomington Arts Commission, Indiana Arts Commission, Early Music America, The Lute Society of America, and the Indiana University Latin American Music Center.

Dear Friends,

As 2018 comes to a close, Bloomington Early Music celebrates a season of unprecedented growth, thanks to the amazing creativity of many artists, the multiple partnerships we’ve developed, and the dedicated people who support our work.

We look toward exciting new opportunities for 2019 and invite you to support our mission generously.

​It’s inspiring to know that this year’s Bloomington Early Music Festival was enjoyed by a dramatically expanded audience! Through innovative live-streaming on Facebook and IUMusicLive, more than 25,000 early music fans across the US and around the world were able to watch, in addition to the approximately 4,000 audience members at the concerts. Our new partnership with Early Music America also led to multiple high-profile articles in their quarterly magazine, as well as mentions in blogs and social media posts. This substantially aided our mission to support and showcase the extraordinary talent of emerging artists.

Exciting plans are underway for the 2019 Bloomington Early Music Festival. Besides continuation of our work with partners Early Music America and the IU Historical Performance Institute, we anticipate welcoming three long-standing national organizations - the Lute Society, the Viola da Gamba Society, and the American Recorder Society. Running from May 17-25, BLEMF ’19 promises to be a truly impressive week for early music enthusiasts in Bloomington, the region, and around the globe.

In addition to the festival, we’ve been enjoying a busy 2018-19 season through sponsorship of several projects: Las Aves performed in the IU Salon Latino Chamber series; Alchymy Viols presented two concerts at Trinity Episcopal Church (one with the IndyBaroque Chamber Players); we presented two concerts at the Courthouse; and the popular Bloomington Bach Cantata Project is in the middle of its ninth annual series at St. Thomas Lutheran Church. Finally, our education programming will soon provide performance and teaching residencies at several local elementary schools, thanks in part to a grant from the Bloomington Arts Commission. Let us know if you’d like more information about these programs.

Our efforts to support musicians and present early music to the Bloomington community would not be possible without the support of our donors. We invite you to consider making a generous tax-deductible donation to Bloomington Early Music as you plan your end-of-year giving.

  Thank you for your support of Bloomington Early Music!

Board Members: Alain Barker (President), Adam Dillon (Secretary), Anthony Lanman (Treasurer), Paulina Francisco (Manager), Erica Rubis (Education), Mollie Abels, Aaron Cain, Alison Calhoun, Micah Fleming, Sally Gaskill, Dana Marsh, Reynaldo Patiño, Stanley Ritchie, and Shelley Taylor.