Festival brings baroque, medieval sounds to town

Antonio Santos came to IU all the way from Spain for two reasons: his passions for early music and opera, both of which he studies at the Early Music Institute in the Jacobs School of Music.   

“It’s the music that moves me the most,” Santos said.

Santos is just one among many musicians with a love for music and culture from the 15th to 18th centuries. Some of these musicians play at the Bloomington Early Music Festival.

The festival, now in its 16th year, started May 15 and will continue through Memorial Day, featuring soloists and ensembles that perform in concerts, operas and educational workshops for younger children. The performances take place at several local churches, the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, the auditorium of the Jacobs School of Music and even at Oliver Winery.

The festival includes music from the Renaissance, early classical, medieval and baroque eras. Musicians play on authentic instruments of the period or reproductions of them, trying to re-create the sounds of past centuries, said Carol Huffman, executive director and administrative manager of the festival.

Huffman, who is a retired music teacher and graduate of the Jacobs school, said the school has provided wonderful instruments for the festival, including fortepianos and keyboard instruments.

Along with the performances and workshops, Huffman said a new feature at this year’s festival is a showing of the 1922 silent movie version of “Robin Hood” written by Douglas Fairbanks and accompanied by Hesperus, an ensemble of early music and medieval musicians from Washington, D.C.

Christine Kyprianides, who serves on the board of directors for the festival and is the festival manager, said that they would like to see a younger audience and will continue to make the festival a family event with more workshops and concerts each year.

Kyprianides, a cellist and early music specialist who received her doctorate from the Early Music Institute, performed at the festival along with competitive musicians from throughout the country.

“I think we’ve had really good concerts and a lot of enthusiasm,” Kyprianides said.  
She also said that funds were cut back this year for the festival.

“Even though we are on a smaller scale, we have not lost anything in terms of quality,” Kyprianides said.

As volunteers and donors come together to hold this festival, Bloomington remains one of three cities in the country to be host to an early music festival, along with Boston and Berkeley, Calif.

Huffman said that, nationwide, the people who come to these festivals are extremely dedicated and passionate about the musical styles of early music, and that there is always room for more people to attend the concerts.

“I think that it’s really important that the Bloomington community realizes what a jewel the Bloomington Early Music Festival is,” Huffman said. “The concerts have been fabulous, just marvelous.”