Anna Mansbridge’s keen imagination and cross-pollination of dance styles — Renaissance, Baroque, contemporary — has informed her work in Seattle and across the Pacific Northwest for a quarter-century.

Based in the Netherlands, the remarkable Butter Quartet research and perform music from the late 18th and early 19th c., with rewarding adventures into modern works — all on period instruments. Their latest album includes string quartets by Haydn and Caroline Shaw.

With two new recordings this year, the lautenwerk — an obscure, gut-stringed, mellow keyboard instrument sometimes called a “lute-harpsichord” — is having its moment. J.S. Bach owned two of them. Wolfgang Rübsam’s latest recording, of Bach’s didactic Inventions and Sinfonias, is a natural fit for the lautenwerk.

For audiences and performers, the value of touring is undeniable. A city-to-city string of shows can seem glamorous, heightening artistic reputations and drawing new fans in distant communities. Many American early-music groups would love to go on tour. Some have learned to navigate that complex landscape.