Early Music Around Town
A timely shortlist of local early music concerts and events.
To view the entire season of concerts and events, consult the current Master Calendar.
Please note that SCEMS does not present or sponsor concerts.
The listings below include early music related concerts and events offered by organizations throughout the Southern California area. Readers are advised to call ahead to verify events, times, and ticket availability, which are subject to change.
Master Calendars
Credit: Renaissance minstrels in Augsburg (1520). iStock.com/© gameover2012
Ongoing:
Early Music America maintains several resources for online live and archived events.
1.updated calendar of events for the upcoming week. Currently these are mostly online events.
2. Early Music On-Demand & Streaming events:
3. Summer Festivals Shift Concerts And Activities Online: many of these past events are archived - the links are listed here, there is a wealth here
4. EMA's 2020 (Virtual) Festival & Showcase
Ongoing Friday releases
John Eliot Gardiner : Monteverdi and his Constellation: Podcast series
John Eliot Gardiner presents a new podcast series exploring Monteverdi’s role at the centre of seismic shifts and tumultuous advances in all the arts and sciences during the early 1600s, spearheaded by his contemporaries - Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, Shakespeare, Caravaggio and Rubens.Across eight episodes, with the help of specially recorded musical illustrations and a handpicked team of experts, Gardiner guides listeners through an in-depth investigation into the development of the early-modern mind.
The series at a glance
The first three decades of the 17th century saw intellectual ferment bubbling up across Europe, epitomised by a single generation of visionary artists and scientists, all born in the 1560s or ’70s. Galileo, Kepler, and Bacon spearheaded a scientific and philosophical revolution, while Shakespeare, Caravaggio and Rubens made radical innovations in the arts, as did a pioneer group of women creative artists and interpreters. This constellation of game-changers extended the map of human knowledge, overturned traditional views, and helped usher in the modern world. But why do historians routinely overlook their exact contemporary, the composer Claudio Monteverdi, whose contributions were no less ground-breaking. Bringing his work and its historical context to life with the help of specially recorded musical illustrations and a handpicked team of experts, Sir John Eliot Gardiner guides listeners through an in-depth investigation into the causes of this seismic shift and the development of the early-modern mind.
Episode 1: Something in the air
Episode 2: ”The intertrafficke of the minde”
Episode 3: The new art of science
Episode 4: How music catches up
Episode 5: The anatomy of melancholy
Episode 6: “More beautiful than the truth”
Episode 7: Celebrating the self
Episode 8: The window of opportunity closes
The first episode in the series, ‘Something in the air’ is now available to listen to
https://monteverdi.co.uk/monteverdi-constellation-podcast-series
Subsequent episodes will be released every following Friday.
September 2020
Friday, September 4 7:30pm PST
Byron Schenkman, harpsichord: Bach and the French Suite
Portland Baroque Orchestra presents the second concert in their all-digital 2020-21 Season: Bach and the French Suite. Byron Schenkman performs a selection of their favorite French and French-inspired harpsichord repertoire, including works by Jean-Henry D'Anglebert, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, and Johann Sebastian Bach. Free!
For more information and how to watch: https://pbo.org/concerts-events/bach-and-the-french-suite/.
SUNDAYS, SEPTEMBER 13-OCTOBER 25. 3:00-4:30 PM PDT
Los Angeles Baroque: Online Adventures with Alexa "Click and Learn".
This summer, LAB co-Artistic Director cellist Alexa Haynes-Pilon gained recognition for distance teaching through her classes for the San Francisco Early Music Society. Now she has created an online program for LAB, each week combining a presentation on a particular baroque music subject with a playing component (though non-playing participants are also welcome), all on Zoom. Registration: $190. Deadline: September 13. Zoom link and password will be sent by email to registered participants prior to sessions. Owning a baroque instrument is not required, but pitch is set at standardized baroque pitch A=415hz. Register at losangelesbaroque.org
September 13: Getting your HIP back into shape!
September 20: You Can’t Spell Blow without Bow: what strings and winds can teach each other about articulation.
September 27: Dance Movement Characteristics
October 4: Aesthetics in Baroque Music
October 11: Other Voices in Early Music: minorities and women
October 18: Let’s talk about Alexa’s favorite consort music and composers!
October 25: Fall Finale! Masterclass, sight-reading and how to practice.
October 2020
Friday, October 2. 7:30pm
PDT Portland Baroque Orchestra: Bach Sonatas: Part II.
Portland Baroque Orchestra presents the third concert in their all-digital 2020-21 Season: Bach Sonatas: Part II. This is the second part of Bach’s six beloved sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord performed by Artistic Director Monica Huggett and harpsichordist Byron Schenkman. Free! For more information and how to watch: https://pbo.org/concerts-events/bach-sonatas-part-ii/.
SUNDAYS, SEPTEMBER 13-OCTOBER 25. 3:00-4:30 PM PDT
Los Angeles Baroque: Online Adventures with Alexa "Click and Learn".
This summer, LAB co-Artistic Director cellist Alexa Haynes-Pilon gained recognition for distance teaching through her classes for the San Francisco Early Music Society. Now she has created an online program for LAB, each week combining a presentation on a particular baroque music subject with a playing component (though non-playing participants are also welcome), all on Zoom. Registration: $190. Deadline: September 13. Zoom link and password will be sent by email to registered participants prior to sessions. Owning a baroque instrument is not required, but pitch is set at standardized baroque pitch A=415hz. Register at losangelesbaroque.org
October 4: Aesthetics in Baroque Music
October 11: Other Voices in Early Music: minorities and women
October 18: Let’s talk about Alexa’s favorite consort music and composers!
October 25: Fall Finale! Masterclass, sight-reading and how to practice.
Oct 30 to Nov 5 Online
Piffaro, The Renaissance Band : 20/21 digital season
20/21 Season: Concert 1
The blind musician Jacob Van Eyck rang the bells of the churches of Utrecht in the early 17th century, and played his little soprano recorder in the courtyards of those same churches. He held countless tunes in his head that he played and improvised on his recorder as he strolled the grounds of church and cathedral. Fortunately, for posterity, and countless recorder players, a scribe wrote down those tunes and the fantastic variations that he spun out.
Piffaro will honor "Eyckie" with a program drawn from his Fluyten Lusthof, both in his variations and in settings by other composers of the time. Philadelphia-based and internationally recognized carilloneur Janet Tebbel plays those tunes on the carillon, while Piffaro answers on recorders and lute. To honor the contribution of the local wind bands who also played outdoors in the public squares of Dutch towns and cities, Piffaro’s shawms, sackbuts and dulcians will resound in the courtyard of the Miraculous Medal Shrine in the historic Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, where we will film this program.
Tickets $13
full season list. https://piffaro.secure.force.com/ticket/#/