By Gus Denhard, Artistic Director If you’re not familiar with it, Early Music is an artform that is all about taking a long view on how to value and perform music.  And that long view is getting longer!  Rylie Patching and Ian Kitchen Baroque DuoParham Souri and Delaram Amiri Classical Persian DuoDuo TakinaiTrío GuadalevínThe Early Music Seattle Northwest Folklife Showcase Artists The Early Music movement exploded in the 60s and 70s in Europe and the USA as a counterculture movement within Classical Music to push back on a scene that was perceived to be full of cronyism and elitism ..read more

November 4 & 5, 2023, Early Music Seattle is excited to present Orgelkids USA! Join us – and make sure to bring the whole family – 45 minutes before each of our concerts to build one of Bach’s favorite instruments! Orgelkids USA will have their incredible pipe organ kit that is design to empower children to build a playable pipe organ all on their own! See the demonstration and be a part of the fun (open to kids of all ages!) in the lobby before Seattle Baroque Orchestra’s Jubilation and Redemption Concerts this weekend. Learn more about Orgelkids USA on their website at orgelkidsusa ..read more

While a fair number of monumental works written by J. S. Bach are among the typical Baroque canon, at least among the reach of the enthusiastic readers of this blog, specific works among the catalog of cantatas tend to be lesser known and subsequently not as frequently programmed. Most attentive audience members are at least familiar with the larger pieces such as the Mass in B Minor, Magnificat, and Christmas Oratorio, which, of course, are outstanding works of art that also happen to have wonderful (and delightfully challenging!) trumpet parts. But the cantatas, perhaps because Bach wrote a ..read more

Next week EMS Artistic Director Gus Denhard will attend the Western Arts Alliance 2023 Conference (WAA), an annual gathering of performing arts professionals, including performers showcasing their work, artists representatives, concert presenting organizations, and more.  The conference takes place right here in Seattle! Gus will have a chance to network with others in the field, learn about the changing environment the arts operate in, and collaborate with other professionals on tours and artistic projects. Of special interest this year is a pre-conference focus, Advancing Asian Am ..read more

By Ellis Hillinger & Liz Lidell Originally published in Seattle Recorder Society and American Recorder Society newsletters (re-printed with permission) Some of our members have been working with electronic devices to display music as they play it, and there are lots of stories both good and bad about how well this works.  Among the reasons you might want to consider a tablet to display your music: You don’t have to carry all that paper around Because the screen is backlit you can read the score in poor lighting The notes you write in the column can be more legible Some of the proble ..read more

How recorder players helped to launch the early music movement by Peter Seibert Overview: The small, fervent group of recorder players during the 1950s and 1960s grew dramatically in the first half of the 1970s, paving the way for the formation of the Early Music Guild of Seattle (EMG) at the middle of the decade. Nourished by the Northwest Recorder Course (NWRC) starting in 1968, the members of the Seattle Recorder Society (SRS) became more knowledgeable as well as more curious. SRS attendance exploded. Playing quality improved along with the demand for professional instruction and performanc ..read more

The Montreal-based ensemble returns for their second Seattle performance with more sea chanties and other maritime music. They made sea chanties famous when they recorded the memorable soundtrack to the popular video game Assassin’s Creed III, followed by Black Flag in 2013 and Rogue in 2014. La Nef will appear on stage with the Seattle-based Sea Chanty ensemble, Strikes a Bell, whose members lead a monthly free sea chanty singalong at the Center for Wooden Boats in South Lake Union. La Nef RED SKY AT NIGHT Sea Chanties and Songs of the Sea Sun, Feb 18 ..read more

2022 Wigmore Medal Winner Mahan Esfahani Bach’s music is very often mesmerizing. It’s very rarely this fun.” – Neil Fisher, The Times Sat, March 9 | 7:30pm | Town Hall Seattle Mahan Esfahani joins Early Music Seattle on March 9, 2024, to lead a program of works by Thomas Tomkins, J.S. Bach, Scarlatti, and more! Meet the youngest recipient of the Wigmore Medal before his appearance this season: Since making his London debut in 2009, Mahan Esfahani has established himself as the first harpsichordist in a generation whose work spans virtually all the areas of classical music-mak ..read more

by Peter Tracy Ars longa vita brevis on a mural n Gottingen Germany scaled   Vīta brevis, ars longa, occāsiō praeceps, experīmentum perīculōsum, iūdicium difficile. Life is short, and art long, opportunity fleeting, experimentations perilous, and judgment difficult. – Hippocrates (460 – 370 BCE), Aphorismi[1] Hippocrates’ Aphorismi have inspired numerous interpretations in the millennia since their composition. Translation between languages and cultures being notoriously difficult, divergent readings of Latin and English translations have lead to significant changes in this verse’s p ..read more

by Peter Seibert William Byrd In the 400th anniversary year of the death of Byrd, who is called by some the “father of British music,” Seibert takes a look at the late Renaissance composer’s life and music. Read complete article PDF “This article by Peter Seibert originally appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of American Recorder magazine, with some material also appearing in the ARS’s March 2023 ARS NOVA e-newsletter. Used with the kind permission of Peter Seibert and the American Recorder Society, https://americanrecorder.org.” Peter Seibert is a former EMS Board President who served 16 ..read more