A Brief History
The roots of Bloomington Early Music and our annual Festival extend back three decades, when in 1992, Stanley Ritchie and friends established a community concert series under the name Early Music Associates, Inc. Just two years later, a group of enterprising and talented students from Indiana University’s Early Music Institute—since renamed the Historical Performance Institute—joined with this same community to establish the Bloomington Early Music Festival, which quickly attracted national attention. Since these earliest days, the festival and organization’s offerings have included some of the most significant musicians and ensembles in the field of Early Music performance, many of whom have deep artistic roots in Bloomington as community members and as faculty, students, and alumni of the HPI.
With a commitment to diverse approaches to performance and to grounding performance in the most current musicological and music historical research, BLEM undertook an important shift in festival programming in 2022 as we attempt to address the question of how a presenter of ancient music can be not only relevant, but enlightening to our audiences in today’s world. Beginning with BLEMF 2022: Celebrating Women in Early Music, festival programs now center on an exploration of under-represented groups in musical culture and music making, and their relationships, contributions, and challenges to repertoire in and outside of the traditional canon.
BLEM has been strengthened through collaborations with national organizations such as Early Music America, leading music scholars at IU’s Jacobs School of Music and the Latin American Music Center, and a continued close alliance with the HPI. BLEM also partners regularly with other local nonprofits in the arts and social services, and with area businesses dedicated to fostering our community and supporting its diverse members.