An early-music field with a desire to sustain specialists — and, notably, to keep its academic programs in existence — must treat repertoire planning as a labor issue, not just an artistic one.

After pandemic stumbles and closures, a few key leaders are recharging Seattle’s early-music landscape with a home-grown, artist-led business model. ‘I think people have had enough of consuming art online. They want in-person experiences again.’

New England Conservatory’s Pratt Early Music Program aims to teach historical performance practice to “modern” instrumentalists and to populate symphony orchestras in the future. As collegiate early-music education is facing budget cuts across the country, the Pratt Program shows a way forward — with dedicated funding.

‘Christian Music in Jerusalem’ is a notable introduction to a subject that has been largely shrouded in obscurity, a historical blank into which we project our own preconceptions. Author Alexander Rosenblatt helps to dispel some of this fog through an ethnomusicological examination — involving Christian, Jewish, and Arab music — of traditions that continue to exist in the Holy Land today.