Announcing the 2020 Virtual Young Performers Festival and Emerging Artists Showcase
We have some good news to share, as today we’re announcing the Virtual Young Performers Festival and Emerging Artists Showcase. From June 8-14, during the week the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition (BFX) was to have taken place, EMA and the San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS) will broadcast made-to-order, pre-recorded concerts and we are delighted to welcome Sunday Baroque as media partner for this project. We are all anticipating with great emotion the moment when musicians and audiences will come back together again. It is devastating that the 16th biennial Berkeley Festival & Exhibition will not take place this year, and we understand that nothing takes the place of a live performance, but we’re happy to share a glimpse of the musicians who were to be featured on the stages of The San Francisco Conservatory of Music and UC Berkeley’s Hertz Hall next month.
We hope you will take advantage of the 2020 Virtual Young Performers Festival and Emerging Artists Showcase as we endeavor to bring the festival spirit into your homes. Most importantly, we hope this will provide inspiration during this challenging period, as we seek to connect the national early music community through the vibrant-music making of these young musicians. Through generous funding by the National Endowment for the Arts, EMA will also sponsor SFEMS’s virtual workshop sessions the weekend of June 12-14.
Join the Watch Party on EMA’s Facebook Page at the times listed below. Performers from each concert will be watching along, chatting, and taking your questions live in the comments. Performances will also be archived on EMA’s YouTube Channel following the Watch Party.
Streaming Performance Schedule
Click ensemble name to view concert details
Young Performers Festival
Monday, June 8, (1pmET/10amPT):
USC Thornton Early Music
Tuesday, June 9, (1pmET/10amPT):
Tonos del Sur
Wednesday, June 10, (1pmET/10amPT):
Early Music Youth Academy
Wednesday, June 10, (2pmET/11amPT):
Davis Senior High School Baroque Ensemble
Thursday, June 11, (1pmET/10amPT):
McGill University Baroque Ensemble
Friday, June 12, (1pmET/10amPT):
Juilliard415
Emerging Artists Showcase
Saturday, June 13 (2pmET/11amPT):
LA Camerata & Lyracle
Sunday, June 14 (2pmET/11amPT):
Trobár & Gili Loftus
Young Performers Festival
Since 2010, Early Music America (EMA) has been proud to bring together college and university ensembles throughout North America to perform at the nation’s leading early music festivals in Berkeley, CA, Bloomington, IN, and Boston, MA. Applicants submitting programs that move beyond the traditional Western classical canon, but fall within the same historical range (to ca.1820), are encouraged to apply.
Learn more
2020 Festival Ensembles
Davis Senior High School Baroque Ensemble – Davis, CA
Early Music Youth Academy – Seattle, WA
Juilliard415 – New York, NY
McGill University Baroque Ensemble – Montréal, QC
Tonos del Sur (Indiana University) – Bloomington, IN
USC Thornton Early Music – Los Angeles, CA
Emerging Artists Showcase
Begun in 2018, the Showcase goes beyond the university level already represented by YPF to serve the broadest possible range of artists. The term “emerging artist” can include historically-informed performers of all types, without respect to age. Applicants are asked to describe how they see the future of historical performance taking shape, and to define how their role as artists and ensembles aligns with that future vision. Applicants submitting programs that move beyond the traditional Western classical canon, but fall within the same historical range (to ca.1820), are encouraged to apply.
Learn more
2020 Showcase Artists and Ensembles
Gili Loftus: fortepiano – Montréal, QC
L.A. Camerata: dir. Marylin Winkle – Los Angeles, CA
Lyracle: Ashley Mulcahy, James Perretta – Boston, MA
Trobár: Allison Monroe, Elena Mullins, Karin Weston – Cleveland, OH
As we move forward with the Festival & Showcase, our hope is that we can offer soloists and ensembles a supportive and stimulating environment in which they can grow and flourish. We look forward to presenting dynamic concerts that reflect the future of historical performance in North America.
Benefits of the Festival
EMA and SFEMS will present a concert for each selected ensemble and this will be livestreamed and recorded. We will offer financial assistance for travel and help with finding accommodation. EMA and SFEMS will produce national publicity for both the Festival and the Showcase and promote musicians by way of EMAg—the Magazine of Early Music America, EMA’s Weekly E-Notes, as well as EMA and SFEMS’s website and social media accounts.
Past Participants
2019: Bloomington
Young Performers Festival
The Brandenburg Project (Community Music School of Ann Arbor)
McGill University Baroque Ensemble (McGill University)
Oberlin Baroque (Oberlin Conservatory)
Peabody Renaissance Ensemble (Peabody Conservatory)
USC Thornton Collegium Workshop (University of Southern California)
Emerging Artists Showcase
Aperi Animam: Milwaukee, WI
Joyce Chen, harpsichord: Princeton, NJ
Vincent Lauzer, recorder: Montréal, QC
Rezonance Baroque Ensemble: Toronto, ON
2018: Bloomington
Young Performers Festival
B’more Bach Ensemble (Peabody Conservatory)
Case Western-Reserve University Baroque Ensemble
Oberlin Baroque
Tarara (Indiana University)
USC Thornton Collegium Musicum
Emerging Artists Showcase
Adriana Ruiz
Costanoan Trio
Mélisande McNabney
Rachell Ellen Wong
Rumore Terribile
Voyage Sonique
2017: Boston
McGill Baroque Ensemble
Oberlin Baroque
USC Thornton Collegium Workshop
Westminster Kantorei
2016: Berkeley
USC Thornton Sinfonia
Opera Nova (Indiana University)
Bowling Green State University Early Music Ensemble
Case Western Reserve University Collegium Musicum Medieval Ensemble
University Baroque Ensemble at Brigham Young University of Idaho
2015: Boston
Case-Western Reserve University Baroque Chamber Music and Dance Ensemble
The University of Northern Texas
The Peabody Conservatory
Oberlin University Baroque Ensemble
Indiana University
McGill University
Seattle Historical Arts for Kids
2014: Berkeley
Arethusa Musica
McGill School’s The Victoria IV Madrigal Ensemble
Case-Western Reserve University Baroque Chamber Music and Dance Ensemble
Liaison Baroque Ensemble
USC Thornton Baroque Sinfonia
Musa Baroque Ensemble
2013: Boston
Tufts Early Music Ensemble
Longy School of Music Bard College; Longy Dufay Ensemble; Longy Lassus Consort and Longy Bach Cantata Project
Juilliard 415
The Peabody Consort
University of North Texas Baroque Orchestra and Collegium Singers
Florida State Early Music Ensemble
USC Thornton Baroque Sinfonia
Case Western Reserve University, Collegium Musicum
Oberlin Baroque Ensemble
McGill University Baroque Orchestra
the Sebastians
2012: Berkeley
San Francisco Conservatory of Music Baroque Ensemble
University of California at Berkeley Baroque Chamber Ensemble
University of North Texas Collegium Singers
Stanford University Baroque Ensemble
Case Western Reserve University Baroque Ensemble and Collegium Musicum
USC Thornton Baroque Sinfonia
2011: Boston
Stony Brook Baroque Players
Harvard University Early Music Society
CWRU/Cleveland Institute of Music Baroque Orchestra
McGill University Baroque Orchestra
University of North Texas Baroque Orchestra and Collegium Singers
Brandeis Early Music Ensemble
Longy School of Music Collegium Musicum
Peabody Conservatory ensembles
Case Western Reserve University Violin Band and Collegium Musicum
Boston University Chamber Ensemble
Oberlin Baroque Ensemble
¡Sacabuche! from Indiana University
University of Southern California Collegium Musicum and Thornton Baroque Sinfonia
EMA Festival Ensemble