Early Music America Summit

This year’s single-track Summit schedule allows all participants to engage together with important topics in the fields of early music and historical performance practice.

Thursday, October 22

9:30am – Sounding Sovereignty: Land Acknowledgement Concert 

This concert seeks to expand the practice of land acknowledgements by moving beyond words and creating meaningful engagement with Indigenous communities in a space where they have historically been underrepresented. By recentering Indigenous voices and listening to the stories of the lands in which the Early Music America Summit takes place, the program is meant to foster reciprocal relationships with local Indigenous communities and encourage lasting partnerships that extend beyond a single event in all the places EMA and its members visit and residents. 
This session is brought to you by Early Music Seattle

10:30am – Panel Discussion: Sounding Sovereignty

This gathering of the individuals that have contributed to Sounding Sovereignty explores how Indigenous knowledge systems can reshape historical performance through the ethical engagement with place, peoples, sound, and histories. Through conversations with Indigenous scholars, Elders, knowledge keepers, and artists, participants will examine how oral traditions, cultural protocols, lived experience, and historical topics within their own communities help develop ethical approaches to performance, research and engagement. This panel will ask the audience to consider how reciprocity, responsibility, and collaboration can transform the ways we engage with historical musics and interpretation in the lands on which we gather. 
This session is brought to you by Early Music Seattle

11:30am – Annual Awards Cermeony

EMA will celebrate the 2026 recipients of our Annual Awards in a brief ceremony.

12:00pm – Lunch Break On Your Own

1:30pm – Regional Spotlight: Community Practice in Early Music 

The metro Puget Sound region is home to a rich tapestry of dynamic grassroots organizations that offer participatory experiences in Early and Ancestral musical practices. Connect with a cross-section of organizations who focus on creating economically and culturally accessible experiences for the community at large, as well as for youth and for specific cultural and linguistic communities. Compare and contrast strategies for building programs and organizations that center early music as part of present-day community-building and social networks.

2:45pm – Baroque Dance Demonstration and Workshop with Anna Mansbridge

This participatory workshop allows attendees the opportunity to embody the different dance forms popular during the Baroque era: minuets, sarabandes, gavottes, gigues, etc.. The workshop will focus on the relationship between the dance and the music, including tempo, rhythm, phrasing, affect and character. Baroque dancer and choreographer Anna Mansbridge will also perform, in costume, a few solos reconstructed from the early eighteenth century using the Beauchamp-Feuillet notation system.

4:30pm – Cantata Trail: Exploring Bach’s Artistry

The Cantata Trail is a workshop in which your guide Miguel Rodé introduces works by J.S. Bach via its historical context and liturgical purpose and performs some light musical analysis to enable a much deeper appreciation of Bach’s superlative artistry. During the sessions we listen to musical excerpts or even entire works if time allows, and we share reference materials such as librettos, scores, and program notes via the Cantata Trail website.
This session brought to you by Seattle Bach Festival

5:30pm – Dinner On Your Own

7:30pm – Age of Galileo: Early Baroque Explore (Partner performance from Sound Salon)
UW Hillel – 4745 17th Ave NE, Seattle
Journey through 17th-century innovation with three violins, lute, guitar, viol, and harpsichord—a wonderfully large group for us that unlocks thrillingly rich and varied ensemble textures! This exceptional gathering of musicians dives into a vibrant array of works, showcasing music by Isabella Leonarda, Francesco Corbetta, Francesca Caccini, and Heinrich Schmelzer. We are thrilled to launch the Early Music America 2026 Summit here in Seattle as its opening concert.
Learn more and purchase tickets (not included with Summit registration.)

10:00pm – Early Music/Late Night! Speakeasy & Jam Session 
Jack Straw Cultural Center – 4261 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle

Unwind with a late-night session of music and frivolity! Finish a full day at the conference with an after-hours jam session and mixer. A short walk from the evening concert, Jack Straw Cultural Center hosts a nonprofit recording studio and art gallery. Check out a favorite recording destination for local artists while enjoying impromptu music by local musical luminaries. Bring your instrument (whatever it may be – as long as it can tune to 440 or 415) and join the session. Or kick back with refreshments and good company.
This session is brought to you by Early Music Seattle.

Friday, October 23

9:30am – Mornings with EMS – Music & Movement: A Ballare la Tarantella!

Tarantelle, pizziche, and tammurriate are some of the deep-rooted musical-dance traditions of Southern Italy which made their way into early-music repertoire. But their story does not begin or end there. Originating in healing and ecstatic dances of the Mediterranean, these forms have enjoyed a new resurgence among young Italians and Italian Americans. Hear from musician Sarah Pizzichemi and dancer Kate Causbie as they recount the role of ancient music and dance in connecting new generations of the Italian diaspora in the Americas to their heritage. Most importantly, start your morning energetically by dancing a few steps!
This session is brought to you by Early Music Seattle.

10:45am – Classroom to the Concert Hall Pipeline

This panel discussion will consider the current ways in which young people are finding their way to early music and historical performance practice and how the field is responding to difficulties in access and funding. Panelists will represent pre-college and collegiate teachers of early music as well as an emerging artist perspective.

11:45am – Lunch On Your Own

1:30pm – EMA’s Young Performers Festival
University Presbyterian Church – 540 15th Ave NE, Seattle
The 15th Young Performers Festival, a celebration of collegiate and precollege early music ensembles, kicks off with performances by Baroque Ensembles from the University of Washington Baroque and the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, CUNY Baroque Ensemble
Free and open to the public

3:30pm – The Resilient Leader – #GigLife: The Joys and Perils of Freelancing

Most early music specialists spend a fair amount of time on the road, bouncing from gig to gig. It’s musically rewarding to perform a wide range of repertoire with a variety of fellow artists, but it can also be exhausting and financially perilous. Moderator David McCormick will ask a small group of gigging panelists about their experiences on the road. What fee structures and travel stipends have allowed them to make a living? How do they navigate challenging homestays and hotels? How have organizations supported their needs when it comes to things like childcare, dietary restrictions, illness, and injury. What can be done to ensure that early musicians can make a comfortable living?

4:45pm – Global Early Music

Continuing conversations begun at previous EMA Summits, we’ll hear from representatives from throughout the Americas and abroad about the state of early music, what is new, where artists and organizations are finding successes and difficulties, and how we as a global early music community can work together.

5:45pm – Dinner Break On Your Own

7:30pm – EMA’s Emerging Artist Showcase
University Presbyterian Church – 540 15th Ave NE, Seattle
The 9th annual Emerging Artists Showcase, featuring performances by:
Ensemble Ursa Major, Pandora Consort, and Quartet Novalis
Ticket included with Summit registration. Public tickets available in October.

Saturday, October 24

9:30am – Mornings with EMS: Widening the Aperture: Early Music in the Americas  

Early music in the Americas is more than a reproduction of practices and repertoire from Europe. For more than five centuries, the Americas have been a point of intersection, encounter, conflict and confluence of musical practice from different cultures and continents. This process has yielded distinct traditions of both secular and sacred music throughout the centuries. Antonio M. Gómez will facilitate a presentation and dialogue building on recent articles on this same topic in EMAg, the Magazine of Early Music America.
This session is brought to you by Early Music Seattle.

10:45am – The Resilient Leader: Philanthropy in Practice

Raising the resources to sustain early‑music is an ongoing challenge shared across organizations of every size. Join fundraising leaders from early‑music and orchestral settings for a conversation on how ensembles and organizations can build a culture of philanthropy that leads to sustained success. Panelists will share approaches that support effective fundraising, highlight recent trends, and consider what long-term support can look like across the field – including lessons drawn from the broader arts ecosystem.

11:45am – Lunch On Your Own

1:30pm – EMA’s Young Performers Festival
The 2026 Young Performers Festival concludes with a concert featuring Seattle Historical Arts of Kids
Free and open to the public

3:30pm – Community Play & Sing Session

Bring your instruments or voices and join in with others playing music from a variety of global early and traditional musics and led by musicians from the Seattle community. All are welcome!

4:45pm – Cultivating Diversity: East Asian Musicians in Early Music 

With the growing success of K-Pop in the North American music industry, this panel discussion investigates how East Asian musicians could find similar success in early music. There may be an increase in East Asian early music artists overall, but how would it look if East Asians were truly well represented in early music? Join panel host Gus Denhard with countertenor Wei En Chan and other guests for this lively discussion.
This session brought to you by EMA’s IDEA Task Force.

5:45pm – Dinner On Your Own

7:30pm – Bach’s B Minor Mass (Partner Performance by Seattle Bach Festival)
First Baptist Church Seattle – 1111 Harvard Ave, Seattle
Seattle Bach Festival invites you to a transcendent performance of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor “widely considered one of the greatest human achievements in musical history.”
Learn more and purchase tickets (not included with Summit registration)

Sunday, October 25

For those enjoying a post-Summit day in Seattle!
3:00pm – SPEM IN ALIUM: Hope in Darkness (Parter performance from Byrd Ensemble)
Holy Rosary Catholic Church – 4139 42nd Ave SW, Seattle
Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and John Taverner shaped the sound of English sacred music during one of history’s most turbulent periods of religious change.
Learn more and purchase tickets (not included with Summit registration)