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. Bloomington Early Music is proud to present our 2024 Festival, as we explore music of these 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. These 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 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 have traveled far in search of a safe haven, and found the solace and joy of home in the music we make.
New Neighbors Art Exhibit
Evenings | 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 ARTS 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, 6PM Monday-Thursday.
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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.
Led 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 an instrumental trio based in Madrid, Spain specializing in early Andalucian traditional music encompassing Arabic, Sephardic, and European Spanish genres. Member Jon Wasserman, a specialist in plucked stringed instruments, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Classical Guitar and Ethnomusicology and a Masters Degree in Historical Plucked String Instruments, both from Indiana University. In 2022, he released a CD with Duo Isanta & Wasserman called “Tonos Humanos” of 17th and 18th century Spanish music. Alberto Espinosa Díaz is a percussionist in traditional and Middle Eastern musics who has studied under masters Yshai Afterman, Zohar Fresco, and Kaveh Sarvarian. He holds a degree in Musicology from the UCM and specialized in Percussion at the CPM Victoria de los Ángeles while also studying modern drums and Jazz. Currently, he is pursuing a Master's degree in Interpretation and Research in Early Music at ESMUC. Olga Rodon is a Spanish recorder player dedicated to the fields of musical performance and management. In recent years she has performed in several festivals in Spain such as the Festival de Música Antigua de Granada, Festival de Música Antigua de Lorca, and Early Music Morella.
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 members of Al Tayr Ensemble
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 was founded in Bloomington, Indiana in 2014 and specializes in the European wind band repertoire of the Renaissance and early Baroque. Almost ten years on, in 2023, Forgotten Clefs toured Montana with the Musikanten Montana, returned to Durham for the North Carolina HIP Festival, performed with Schola Cantorum of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, Virginia, and had their Pittsburgh premiere with choral-instrumental music of William Byrd under direction of Alan Lewis and his Calvary Schola. The ensemble’s annual educational outreach program, “Shawms and Stories,” brings musical storytelling to schools, libraries, and community centers in 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 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.
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 very cell at the Hohenasperg Fortress where Schubart spent a decade, 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 Enlightenmet, 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!
Learn how to fight like a pirate without hurting a fly from a certified, professional stage combat instructor! Set sail across the Mediterranean with our crew of swashbuckling rogues, and thrust and slash your way to victory like the dreaded Redbeard himself. And if you dare to enter the pirate’s den for this seafaring adventure, you get to take home your own (foam!) sword to vanquish your foes—Aaarrrggghhh!
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.
Soprano and harpist Zoe Vandermeer is a prize-winning graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and on the Roster of the CT Commission on Culture and Tourism. She accompanies her singing on Welsh triple harp music primarily from the Baroque and Classical periods. Ms. Vandermeer has performed at the Rio International Harp Festival Brasil, International Festival de Deia Spain, American Harp Society, Glasgow Early Music Festival, Connecticut Early Music Festival, American Swedish Historical Museum Philadelphia, New Britain American Museum of Art, Pollok House National Trust Scotland, Nairn Little Theatre Scotland, and elsewhere. In 2014, she enjoyed her Carnegie Hall debut as First Place Winner of the B. Alexander International Vocal Competition. Ms. Vandermeer has been a featured guest on radio stations in the US and Scotland; her Dowland recording received a favorable review by the UK Lute Society Journal and her soprano and harp baroque album is forthcoming from Centaur Records in 2024.
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
Community Showcase
Bloomington takes the stage!
Honoring the long tradition of Early Music in our community, we present our talented neighbors in an exciting display of early music across cultures, including a showing from our very musically talented BLEM staff!
Stay tuned for more details!
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 adaptations by Westerners. Enjoy original recipes along your chocolate journey!
Led by Christopher Armijo & Steven M. Warnock
A partnership with Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard
Workshop runs 2:00pm-4:00pm
Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers Street
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 is currently pursuing a 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!
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!
Listen, learn & be merry while time traveling in place. Hear about the history of music & drink through lecture, demonstration, sing along & tasting! Try out centuries-old drink recipes while listening to early music written to be performed while imbibing.
Led by Devon Nelson
Workshop runs 5:00pm-6:30pm
$15 at the door | 21+ only
John Waldron Arts Center
122 S. Walnut Street
8:00pm | Live Concert
Musica Pacifica
Enclosures, Clearances, the First Wave, oh my!
(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 and a 2023 Engagement Award from Early Music America, 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) During the Franco regime, a group of well-known Spanish music critics, composers, and musicologists living in exile—along with some half-million others—dug deep into music of the Golden Age. Though scattered across the globe, Otto Mayer-Serra, Jesus Bal y Gay, Adolfo Salazar, Roberto Gerhard, Ernesto Halffter, Eduardo Martinez Torner, Jaume Pahissa and others kept in frequent contact through the musicologist and Catalan priest Higini Anglés, who remained in Spain as director of the Spanish government’s Instituto Español de Musicología. Cooperative research and intense musical discussion of this repertoire is understood to have helped these political exiles reconnect to cultural life in their homeland in a profoundly meaningful way.
Exquisitely beautiful and powerfully rousing, music of Spain’s Golden Age was patronized by—and composed to glorify—the Catholic monarchs during a time of vicious intolerance and sweeping expulsion of both Jews and Muslims. How, then, during another dangerously volatile period five centuries on, did this same music, with its problematic origins well-known, serve as a means for another group of exiles—political this time, rather than religious—to re-engage wtih their home country? This program gives us pause to consider how musical meaning shifts with time and context, as the victims and the oppressors change and the role of a particular work or repertoire changes with them.
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 group’s superb musicianship, youthful energy, and vibrant stage presence create a powerful, engaged connection between early music and modern audiences. Cantoría is quickly building an international presence with numerous accolades to their name and concerts at renowned festivals and venues in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Germany, the UK, Poland, and Croatia. Their CD, Mateo Flecha “El Viejo”: Ensaladas has earned three prestigious recording awards: the Diapason Découverte Award (France), the German Record Critics Prize (Germany), and the Melómano d’Oro (Italy). Cantoría’s BLEMF 2024 performance will be 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 grant from Acción Cultural Española.
