EMAg Features

How do we keep up with what’s going on? In our field, it's the kind of writing that is variously called music journalism, criticism, public musicology, or haute vulgarisation. These terms all have in common that they're written by experts to be read by non-experts.

This past summer I was honored to be elected board president of EMA. My wish for continuous expansion: our awareness of each other within the field, our scholarships and support for young talent, our reach and service to include Latin America, and the scope of our art to include historical traditions and practices from around the world.

Dedicated to research toward performances of French Baroque repertoire, Le Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles encourages American musicians and scholars to travel to Paris for research or to hone their skills. Its resources are likely unmatched in the early-music world.

Early music brings us together, since exploring long forgotten or ignored repertoire requires communities of knowledge and of specialized practice. The late soprano Deborah Roberts took this ideal to the highest level, connecting amateurs and professionals on both sides of the Atlantic.

He was born into slavery, described as a fiddler when he tried to escape, and was emancipated in his mid-20s. Sawney Freeman's Musician's Pocket Companion may be the earliest published music by a Black composer in the United States.

Political chaos impacts us all. How will we respond? When it comes to government arts support, the new administration in Washington has a clear agenda: to zero out funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We're just days past the inauguration, and the returning president has again called government arts funding “a waste.” The argument over paying for the arts has long been a sideshow in the culture wars.

At an early EMA board meeting, Thomas Forrest Kelly recalls 'serious discussion of whether we wanted to be the American Dairy Council (lobbying association for the professional field), or the Rah-Rah Association of Enthusiasts (focused on amateurs). EMA, after 40 years, has still perhaps not quite figured that out, and creative discussions continue.'

Restoration means bringing an instrument back to a playable condition. Conservation is about preserving an instrument in its current state and ensuring its survival. Is "restorative conservation" the solution, or just the latest trend?

How we educate future early musicians is among the most essential challenges facing the field. In historical performance, perhaps no two institutions represent the extremes of the scholarship vs performance continuum more than Cleveland's Case Western Reserve and New York's Juilliard School.

It all started in the basement of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, where a collection of historical instruments had languished for decades. Seventy years later, the Boston Camerata's artistry and its attitudes about 'early music' and multicultural repertoire has influenced the entire field.