In honor of Memorial Day weekend, Bloomington Early Music will be kick off its annual music festival starting May 22.
Early Music Associates is a registered nonprofit organization whose main mission is to catalyze the performing arts in Bloomington and south central Indiana.
The Bloomington Early Music Festival encourages and celebrates historically informed performance with an annual festival, seasonal concerts and numerous educational events in the region.
It also aims to support emerging performing artists.
The organization just announced the lineup of events that will take place at this year’s festival.
According to Early Music Associates’ official website, the festival will include a series of six concerts by local, regional and national artists. Each musical act will be performing themed music from the Renaissance to the Baroque era.
The Bloomington Early Music Festival will be a joint effort between Early Music Associates and the IU Jacobs School of Music’s Historical Performance Institute, Project Jumpstart and IU Student Organization Gamma Ut.
There will be a pre-festival event Thursday, May 21, at Rachael’s Café. The theme of this event is pop music in the early music style, and it will be directed by Brady Lanier.
The festival concert officially kicks off Friday, May 22, at the Monroe County Courthouse Rotunda.
This concert will feature a group called the Forgotten Clefs ensemble, in which each member will play an instrument from the Renaissance era including bassoons, oboes, trombones, recorders, percussion instruments and bagpipes.
On Saturday, May 23, there will be three separate events running throughout the morning, afternoon and nighttime.
This will include an instrument petting zoo and pop-up performances in early music at the Bloomington City Hall Atrium, all performed by members of Gamma Ut.
There will also be a performance by Martin Davids and Antonin Stahley who will play a violin duet at the First Presbyterian Church.
Then there will be a show titled “Chantons, Chantons!” directed by Reynaldo Patino and stage directed by Christina Lynch. This event will also take place at the First Presbyterian Church.
Finally on Sunday, May 24, there will be a tribute concert in honor of the works of Georg Philipp
Telemann.
This will be done by musicians who will play instruments such as the recorder, oboe, bassoon and
harpsichord.
To conclude the service, there will be a celebratory concert in honor of Jacobs professor Stanley Ritchie. This will include a performance by Jacobs faculty, alumni and students who will perform chamber music and a light orchestral
concert.
According to Leela Breithaupt, a board member of Bloomington Early Music, this festival section will celebrate the eightieth birthday of the organization’s founder Stanley Ritchie.
Every festival event taking place Memorial Day weekend will be free to the Bloomington public.
