Ten-day Bloomington Early Music festival to kick off friday

The 12th annual Bloomington Early Music Festival begins on Friday and will last ten days. Its 21 events include concerts and recitals of music ranging from medieval to baroque and classical. Events will occur mostly on the weekends, anchored around the Norwegian vocal ensemble Modus on the first weekend and around the ARTEK theatrical production the second.\nThe Bloomington Early Music Festival was begun by a group of IU students in the Music School's Early Music Institute who wanted to fill the concert gap in the Music School's program after the school year's end. The concerts gradually drew more interest and expanded into a 10-day festival of international recognition.\nMartie Perry, the interim Executive Director of BLEMF, spoke about the growth she has seen during her years involved with the festival.\n"I've personally seen the expansion in my five years here," she said. "We've reached out to the wider community of Indiana and we've gained notoriety among early music artists. This year we had 90 groups apply to get on our festival and our audience grows 20 percent every year."\nPerry also said that the festival is great for both the IU and Bloomington community.\n"The Early Music Festival is not only good for tourism and fills the Music School's performance gap, but the events are actually in the community itself," she said.\n"Also, the festival benefits students. It exposes them to more early music and makes them run their own concerts. It's a great résumé booster," Perry added.\nIU Doctoral Student Avi Stein, who will be playing in two of the concerts and conducting a third (Johann Mattheson's setting of the Saint John Passion), gave a student's perspective on the festival.\n"A group of friends and I got together and we wanted to perform this youthful, dramatic music," he said. "There's a great sense of doing things for their own sake. There's such a variety of really great musicians. Also, being in the summer makes the concert seem less stressful."\nStein said that for listeners, the festival is a great chance to hear music that is rarely performed live. Stein also commented on the performance of Bach's Cantata No. 80 and Handel's "Dixit Dominus" -- other choral works. Though they are part of the standard repertoire, Stein said, they are exciting pieces performed in an exciting way.\nStein was enthusiastic about the festival and highlighted its importance to Bloomington as well.\n"Lots of local effort goes into it," he said, "and it gives Bloomington national attention. It's like the Lotus Festival, but with the focus on early music instead of world music."\nPerry then spoke of the concerts featured on this year's program.\n"There's no concert to miss. Every night there's something exciting and different," she said, "because performances are of rare music on period instruments."\nUnique events that Perry did highlight, however, are the anchor events: the Dodworth Saxhorn Band, the Atwater Consort at the Oliver Winery and the Gaelic harp's performance at the Irish Lion, which is the first time the festival will expand to a local restaurant venue.\nPerry also highlighted future plans for the Early Music Festival.\n"We've always had an educational aspect to the festival," Perry said. "This year we have three children's programs, family events and a program at the Ellettsville public schools. We plan on having a fall program that reaches out to schools in the future."\nOther plans are to bring new and more famous names to the festival. Also, 2006 is going to be a "Mozart year" for the festival and in 2007 the festival plans to host a modern premiere of a Vivaldi opera stored on microfilm in IU's music library.\n"The festival is becoming more established every year," Perry said of present expansion and future plans.\nA concert schedule and ticket information can be viewed at www.blemf.org/concerts.htm.