BLEMF 2026
Early Music & Early America
May 26-30
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a clarion call for freedom was heard on this continent, one that continues to resound today. The anniversary of this declaration is an important opportunity to reconsider that earlier time, and there are few better ways to immerse ourselves in the world of Early America than through its music.
Follow us into Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia home to hear his most favored string quartets; “march on chearfully” to the Battle of Yorktown with the Musick band of the Second Virginia Regiment; be charmed by parlor music played and composed by the “fairer sex”; open your ears to enslaved Africans who hold fast to family stories and musical traditions; and revel in dance tunes and songs of worship carried from the “Old World” to the “New” by immigrants, missionaries, and nuns in New Spain and French Louisiana.
BLEMF 2026 will explore this vast variety of music and remarkable mix of people who, from across the thirteen colonies and the territories that would later join the Union, became one nation. Join us for these five days and evenings as we commemorate our collective past and celebrate the strength we have together — e pluribus unum.
BLEMF Events are FREE & OPEN TO ALL
Photo credit: Alex Koppel Photography
Live Concerts & Pre-Concert Talks
Pre-concert discussions take place prior in the same venue.
No tickets or RSVP to attend!
All in-person concert venues are handicap-accessible.
Live Concerts & Pre-Concert Discussions will be livestreamed and available for streaming soon after the festival. See this section below for how to view online.
Virtual Concerts & Public Screenings
All virtual concerts & preconcert discussions will be released for streaming on Opening Night, and will be available until June 7th. Enjoy them from the comfort of your own home, or from where ever you may be!
Or join us for free public screenings in several venues listed on the main festival page! Bring your friends & family along to enjoy the performances in a comfy & fun theater setting in the heart of downtown!
How do I watch online?
On the day of the concert, “Watch concert!” and “Watch pre-concert discussion” buttons will appear below the concert listing on this webpage. Click the button and you will be redirected to the Bloomington Early Music YouTube page.
For live concerts & talks, click on the “Live Now” video at the posted start time for the livestream. Concerts will also be livestreamed on our Facebook page, and the recording will then be available to watch on our Facebook video page.
For virtual concerts & talks, these same buttons will take you directly to the videos, which you can watch at your leisure any time between May 26 and June 7.
Educational Workshops
Educational workshops are designed for children and adults who are young-at-heart. Kids under the age of 9 should be accompanied by an adult.
Please consider signing up through the “Reserve my Spot!” buttons under each workshop description. While reservations are not required, knowing attendance numbers ahead of time helps us to plan supplies and space, so that everyone can enjoy the event to the full!
General Event Information
New Neighbors Children’s Art Exhibit
A partnership with Exodus Refugee Immigration
Evenings at Trinity Episcopal | May 26th — 30th
Throughout Festival Week, enjoy artwork created by children of families who have recently joined our community, having left their troubled homelands in other parts of the world. The exhibit will be just outside the sanctuary at Trinity Episcopal Church from Opening Night, Sunday, May 26th through Closing Night, May 30th. We are thrilled to mount the New Neighbors exhibit for the third year in a row, and we are more grateful than ever to our new young friends for sharing their artwork with us and for contributing their talents to our festival. Thank you and welcome to Bloomington!
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY PSI IOTA XI / THE BLOOMINGTON THRIFT SHOP
AND BY BLOOMINGTON FINE ART SUPPLY
Tuesday, May 26
2:00pm | Workshop
What’s That Sound?
Shape Note Singing!
Discover the vibrant tradition of shape note singing, a uniquely American style of community music-making that dates back to the early 19th century. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn how the shape note system works and try singing from a historic tunebook together. No prior musical experience is required—just bring your voice and curiosity! 🎶
Led by C. Keith Collins
Venue to be announced
Keith Collins is adjunct instructor in historical bassoon and recorder at Indiana University's Historical Performance Institute, and also teaches baroque bassoon and curtal at the University of North Texas. He has taught at Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, Indiana University Recorder Academy, has been guest lecturer at the Indiana Early Double Reed Workshop as well as a writer for NPR's early music program Harmonia. Keith’s other interests include the history of Appalachian folk music and the banjo, early American hymnody and the shape-note tradition, and the early history and repertoire of the harp in the UK and Ireland.
5:00pm | Public Screening
with Pre-Concert Discussion
Williamsburg Baroque
Deplorable Barbarism & Delightful Recreation
(Williamsburg, VA) A trio of musicians direct from Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Williamsburg Baroque offers an impressive display of instrumental music from the early decades of the nascent United States. The works in this program—all composed between 1767 and 1803 and titled after Thomas Jefferson comments on the state of music in the land—reflect the new “Immigrant School” of early American composers hailing from Europe and across the young nation.
Pre-concert discussion with Sophie Genevieve Lowe, Williamsburg Baroque member, and Rebecca Bechtold, Associate Professor of English at Wichita State University and specialist in 18th and 19th-century American literature & culture and soundscape studies.
Williamsburg Baroque is a BLEM Emerging Ensemble.
Monroe County Public Library Auditorium
303 E. Kirkwood Ave
Available May 26th on BLEM’s YouTube channel
CO-SPONSORED BY STEVE & JO ELLEN HAM
7:00pm | Opening Night Concert!
6:15 | Pre-Concert Discussion
Franklin Quartet
A Federal Fanfare at the Franklins’
(Philadelphia, PA) BLEMF 2026 begins our concert series in an ostensible 1785, in Benjamin Franklin’s own parlor as the Philadelphia-based Franklin Quartet performs works of lesser-known European composers personally acquainted with Franklin during his decade in Paris. Listeners will enjoy an intimate house concert rooted in the city’s rich 18th-century parlor music tradition that helped shape early cultural exchange as the US formed its own identity separate from, but heavily influenced by, Europe.
Pre-concert discussion with Marika Homqvist, member of the Franklin Quartet, and Peyson Weekley, Indiana University Ph.D. candidate in musicology and specialist in music & politics in the Enlightenment period
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
Wednesday, May 27
2:00pm | Workshop
Indigenous American Music
Acknowledging Tradition & Music Making
This presentation explores Indigenous American music traditions, looking at cultural protocols, communal contexts, and the deeper meanings behind music practice, including how making music in Indigenous traditions helps to strengthen community identity and resilience in times of trouble. Reserved almost entirely for ritual and worship, Indigenous American music is not appropriate for public performance; this enriching exploration is our way to invite our audiences into this profoundly important part of the soundscape during the Early American period.
IU Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
416 N. Indiana Ave
5:00pm | Public Screening
with Pre-Concert Discussion
Music of the Regiment
Equal to Any Band in this Country
(Alexandria, VA) During the American War for Independence, military bands provided music for social events, recruiting, military ceremonies—and, with ill-equipped and hungry soldiers on the verge of mutiny, to aid troops “march on chearfully [sic]” into battle. Music of the Regiment, out of Alexandria, VA, recreates the historical band of the Second Virginia Regiment in a program that pairs readings with marches, arias, and divertimenti that formed the soundtrack for the international armies converging at Yorktown in 1781.
Pre-concert discussion between Music of the Regiment Artistic Director Dominic Giardino and Bruce Gleason, professor of music history at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN and specialist in military history & military music
Monroe County Public Library Auditorium
303 E. Kirkwood Ave
Available May 26th on BLEM’s YouTube channel
7:00pm | Live Concert
6:15 | Pre-Concert Discussion
Tonos
Padre Kino’s Soundscape: Music and Mission in Early America
(Bloomington, IN) The second night of the concert series moves far across the land to 17th-century New Spain, to territory destined to be the very last to join the continental United States in 1912. Tonos, a beloved ensemble born in Bloomington a decade ago, presents a collection of music from Jesuit missions resonant with the rich intellectual and artistic exchange from across the region. Tonos’s performance brings together Indigenous, Spanish, and Catholic traditions that remain a part of the fabric of the present-day nation.
Pre-concert discussion with Sarah Cranor, Tonos artistic director, and Paul W. Borg, former BLEM board member and Latin American music specialist
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
SPONSORED BY Peter Burkholder & Doug McKinney
GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY THE LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC CENTER, JACOBS SCHOOL OF MUSIC
AND CO-SPONSORED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH & PORTUGUESE, INDIANA UNIVERSITY AND BY ALAIN BARKER
Thursday, May 28
2:00pm | Workshop
Writing Early America
Early Documents and the Tools that Made Them
Back by popular demand, we gladly return to the Lilly Library to explore its extensive and incredibly varied collections of books, manuscripts, sheet music, and cultural artifacts. Join us as we discover materials that illuminate life in early America, from everyday objects to the documents that shaped a young nation. Stick around afterward for a hands-on crafting activity led by Dr. Kirby Haugland, who will guide participants in the art of quill and ink writing.
Led by the Lilly Library & Kirby Haugland
Lilly Library
1200 E. 7th Street
A PARTNERSHIP WITH THE LILLY LIBRARY AT INDIANA UNVERSITY
Dr. Kirby Haugland is a visiting assistant professor in the musicology department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His research focuses on relationships surrounding musical creation and performance. This interest manifests in subjects ranging from early film music and contemporary composer John Adams to technologies of 18th-century theater stages. He is a talented trumpet player—if an out of practice one—and he serves as Finance & Administration Manager for Bloomington Early Music.
5:00pm | Public Screening
with Pre-Concert Discussion
Patricia García Gil
Music for a Nation, “by a Lady”
(Ithaca, NY/Madrid, Spain) Internationally accomplished historical keyboardist Patricia García Gil explores Parlor Music—a genre in which those of “the fair sex” were meant to charm rather than to dazzle—throughout the first century of the United States. Moving from the earliest piano music written by American women veiled as “A Lady” or “A Young Lady,” to more sophisticated works by recognized American women composers, to South American women composers who through influence and immigration bridged the two continents, Gil brilliantly links women’s parlor culture to a rising public virtuosity most often reserved for men.
Pre-Concert Discussion screened at the start of the program, between Patricia and Glenda Goodman, Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a historian of music who specializes in American music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Patrica García Gil is a BLEM Emerging Artist.
Monroe County Public Library Auditorium
303 E. Kirkwood Avenue
Available May 26th on BLEM’s YouTube channel
7:00pm | Live Concert
BLEMF Community Showcase
Bloomington Musicians Take the Stage!
A remarkable line-up of musicians from our local community and an astonishingly enthusiastic response from their audience of friends, neighbors, and fans made it abundantly clear that the BLEMF Community Showcase must continue! Our 2024 & 2025 programs brought to the stage a surprisingly varied array of early music talent and skill, and this year promises to be just as exciting.
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
Friday, May 29
2:00pm | Workshop
Tea vs. Coffee
A brewing revolution in Early America
Tea or coffee—which would you choose? In this engaging workshop, explore how these two beverages became symbols of culture, politics, and daily life in early America. Learn about their surprising histories, taste a few varieties, and discover how a simple drink could spark debate in a brewing revolution.
Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers St
4:15pm | Documentary Film Premiere
with Pre-Concert Discussion
Rock & Reel
A Film About Monticello’s Black Fiddlers
(Charlottesville, VA) This new documentary film tells the story of two families of enslaved and free Black musicians who transformed the soundscape of 19th century Virginia: the Hemings —a trio of enslaved sons of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson—and their cousins the Scotts—indigenous fiddler Jesse Scott and his three sons and grandson. The music of these family bands resounded throughout the halls of Monticello and in the streets of Charlottesville, for dignitary guests of the former president and for pub-goers along Main Street. In Rock & Reel: Monticello’s Black Fiddlers, premiering at BLEMF 2026, historians piece together the lives and tunes of these influential, under-examined musicians to show that their music was as joyful and infectious as their lives were complicated and difficult.
Discussion after the film screening with filmmaker David McCormick & renowned fiddle player Ben Hunter
Lotus Firebay
105 S. Rogers St
CO-SPONSORED BY LINDA HANDELSMAN
This screening is supported by the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Indiana Arts Commission.
7:00pm | Live Concert
6:15 | Pre-Concert Discussion
Alchymy Viols
The Sounds of French Louisiana
(Bloomington, IN) Indiana’s own Alchymy Viols offers music from the Ursuline Manuscript, a spiritual songbook gifted from France in 1736 to a convent in New Orleans in the heart of French Louisiana—territory that would later join the United States. Sung in devotion by the Ursuline sisters, its music is by the most reputed French composers of the era—Lully, Campra, Lambert, Marchand, Clérembault—adapted with religious lyrics. In transcriptions by Alchymy artistic director Phil Spray, this concert is a stunning showcase of feminine expression and colonial life in the Louisiana territory.
Pre-concert discussion with Phil Spray, Alchymy Viols artistic director & founder and John Romey, Purdue University Fort Wayne professor and specialist of early modern French music, politics, religion, and spectacle; of South American colonial and indigenous musics; and of historical bowed bass instruments, instrumental technology, and historical performance practices.
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
SPONSORED BY CATHLEEN CAMERON AND BY JACK DOSKOW & JEAN PERSON
CO-SPONSORED BY PAUL BORG AND BY THE DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH & ITALIAN, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Saturday, May 30
2:00pm | Workshop
The Early American Ballroom
Lessons in Contredanse
Step into the lively world of the early American ballroom and learn the elegant steps of the contredanse, a popular social dance of the 18th century. In partnership with the Bloomington Old Time Music & Dance Group, this workshop introduces the basic figures and rhythms that brought communities together on the dance floor. No prior dance experience is required—just bring comfortable shoes and a willingness to move!
Harmony School
909 E. 2nd Street
A PARTNERSHIP WITH THE BLOOMINGTON OLD TIME MUSIC & DANCE GROUP
CO-SPONSORED BY LINDA HANDELSMAN
5:00pm | Live Concert
The BEMI Players
In their 4th annual Stanley Ritchie Youth Performance!
(Bloomington, IN) This fourth appearance on the BLEMF mainstage by members of the Bloomington Early Music Immersion program showcases new skills and newly discovered talents developed during a week of instruction and activities introducing middle-school aged musicians to Baroque era technique and repertoire. A partnership between Bloomington Early Music and the Historical Performance Institute of the Jacobs School of Music, the 2026 BEMI program is once again free to participants and fun for all!
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
SPONSORED BY LEAH SHOPKOW
CO-SPONSORED BY W.B. PATRICK
7:00pm | Live Concert
6:15 | Pre-Concert Discussion
Early Music Access Project
Tunes & Stories from Monticello
(Charlottesville, VA) The series and celebration come to a rousing close with Early Music Access Project’s trio of two fiddles and a storyteller, bringing to life the tales of Pricilla Hemings—enslaved nursemaid to Thomas Jefferson’s household and the aunt of Sally Hemings—with music played by the Hemings and Scott family fiddlers of Monticello. Nationally acclaimed storyteller Sheila Arnold and renowned Black fiddler Benjamin Hunter join EMAP’s David McCormick for this very special finale.
Pre-concert discussion with David McCormick, EMAP’s Artistic Director and founder, Sheila Arnold, nationally acclaimed storyteller, and Benjamin Irvin, IU Department of History professor and social and cultural historian of early America and the United States
Trinity Episcopal Church
111 S. Grant Street
Livestreamed at www.BLEMF.org
CO-SPONSORED BY LYNN SCHWARTZBERG & PETER HARALOVICH
This screening is supported by the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Indiana Arts Commission.
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Continued Thanks to our 2025 Supporters & Sponsors
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