EARLY MUSIC FOUNDATION
TO OBSERVE ITS
50TH ANNIVERSARY IN 2024
20th Anniversary of New York Early Music Central to be
Marked with 8th New York Early Music Celebration in October
2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding by Frederick Renz of the Early Music Foundation (EMF) and its performance arm, Early Music New York.
This year is also the 20th anniversary of the first citywide New York Early Music Celebration, and the establishment of EMF’s service-to-the-community arm, New York Early Music Central.
In honor of this dual anniversary, EMF is planning the eighth New York Early Music Celebration, the first since 2019. Events are expected to take place throughout the month of October.
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In addition to a special 50th anniversary concert by Early Music New York led by Mr. Renz on Saturday, October 26 at First Church of Christ, Scientist, EMF plans to present a panel discussion about early music in New York over the past 20 years, since the first New York Early Music Celebration, and the future of early music in New York.
About the New York Early Music Celebration
An EMF Service-to-the-Field project, this festival is designed to showcase New York’s historically informed performance artists, ensembles and presenters.
In the Celebration’s 2004 inaugural year, EMF organized a city-wide early music celebration that spawned sixty-plus events. In 2007, the number of participants grew to more than ninety. In 2010, EMF together with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Concerts & Lectures and Musical Instruments Departments combined resources to co-produce a day-long Early Music Festival.
In 2013, the festival concept was enhanced by introducing a national theme, Pro Musica Polonica, with select foreign guests. The 2015 festival’s national theme was titled El Nuevo Mundo, showcasing music and ensembles from Latin America and Iberia; and the 2017 festival was titled The Low Countries, featuring music and guest artists from Flanders and Holland. Ex Borealis (2019) focused on repertoire from the Nordic and Baltic regions, not often heard in New York, and included artists and ensembles from those areas.
2024 will mark both the 50th anniversary of the Early Music Foundation, and the 20th anniversary of the first New York Early Music Celebration. The forthcoming festival, as in previous years, is open to all NYC historical performance artists and presenters, as well as touring ensembles appearing in New York during that time period.
All New York-based historical performance artists, ensembles, and presenters are invited to schedule events during the festival. EMF’s principal role will be to augment promotional efforts of all participants via an umbrella marketing budget for the full Celebration, encompassing a brochure, radio ads, social media and public relations.
We anticipate this eighth Celebration endeavor will be another noteworthy event – an opportunity for the New York Early Music Community to reinforce its presence, qualitative and quantitative, on the City’s cultural scene.
Early Music Foundation has a new series of performance videos by ensemble members on our YouTube channel, supplemented by enlightening discussions by the artists. Here are the most recent; you can find a list of all our video and audio features in our latest newsletter.
Wind instrumentalist Wayne Hankin provides informative background and commentary to accompany four entertaining and colorful performances of medieval music on such historic instruments as hornpipes, vessel flutes, bagpipes and double pipes.
Keyboardist Dongsok Shin introduces the lautenwerck, also known as a lute-harpsichord, very likely the instrument for which J.S. Bach composed most of the works we have come to know as lute music. He follows his remarks with a performance of Bach's Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in
E-Flat, BWV 998.
Cellist and gambist Sarah Abigael Stone curates and comments upon a series of split-screen videos of Bach Chorales in which she plays all the parts on various cellos, gambas and assorted percussion instruments.
