Press Release

BEMF celebrates our 35^th annual concert series with 9 programs in Greater Boston—all available for virtual viewing for our fans around the world

Cambridge, MA–Subscription packages and individual tickets are now on sale for the Boston Early Music Festival’s 2024/25 Season, featuring 9 programs in Boston and Cambridge with virtual broadcasts following each in-person performance. A highlight of the 2024/25 Season—our 35^th annual concert series in Greater Boston—will be a 3-city tour featuring an all-new production of Telemann’s Don Quichotte from the BEMF Chamber Opera Series, led by BEMF’s GRAMMY-winning Musical Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs and Stage Director Gilbert Blin.

This year, BEMF welcomes back artists and ensembles who have been enthralling audiences for decades—including three groups who have been with us since the very start! Before our inaugural 1990/91 Season, BEMF joined with Charles River Concerts to present the 1989/90 International Early Music Series, our first foray into presenting concerts outside of our biennial Festivals. That series boasted appearances by perennial favorites The Tallis Scholars, Les Arts Florissants, and the then-named Hespèrion XX with Jordi Savall making his Boston début. These legendary ensembles will return for our 35^th Season alongside other beloved superstars and dazzling débuts as BEMF continues our commitment to bringing the world’s finest artists to Boston for performances that inspire and delight.

“One of the nation’s foremost Early Music organizations.”
—The New Yorker

We open our 35^th Season with a welcome return from the Gramophone Award-winning ensemble Vox Luminis on Saturday, October 26, 2024 at 8pm at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, Boston. Director Lionel Meunier leads a fascinating program exploring the Lutheran texts that Brahms used for his Ein Deutsches Requiem in earlier settings from the German Baroque, imagining a very different-sounding yet deeply emotional German Baroque Requiem.

Conductor Andrea Marcon leads the accomplished members of the Venice Baroque Orchestra in a program of audacious theatricality from the four musketeers of the Venetian Baroque—Vivaldi, Veracini, Tartino, and Locatelli. The thrilling violin virtuoso Chouchane Siranossian makes her BEMF début in this “battle of the bows” where the violin is the weapon of choice to demonstrate technical prowess and artistic bravura. Don’t miss the spectacular fireworks of this electrifying collaboration on Saturday, November 2, 2024 at 8pm at NEC’s Jordan Hall in Boston.

The GRAMMY-winning BEMF Chamber Opera Series returns for an all-new production of Georg Philipp Telemann’s Don Quichotte on Thanksgiving weekend in Boston, Saturday, November 30, 2024 at 8pm and Sunday, December 1, 2024 at 3pm at NEC’s Jordan Hall. Cervantes’s epic story is brought to life through irresistible music, brilliant costumes, and gorgeous Baroque dance. This rare staged performance of Telemann’s lovely serenata, Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Comacho, sees Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza stumble upon the idyllic wedding of wealthy sheep rancher Comacho to the beautiful Quiteria—but her childhood sweetheart Basilio is ready to disrupt the festivities even if it’s the last thing he ever does!

This production is led by BEMF’s GRAMMY-winning Musical Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs and internationally acclaimed Stage Director Gilbert Blin. Heralded for his “beautiful voice” and “regal stage prescence” (Ritmo), bass-baritone Christian Immler makes his BEMF Chamber Opera Series début in the title role after numerous appearances in BEMF’s fully staged operas and studio recordings. The stellar cast also includes BEMF favorite Jason McStoots as Sancho Pansa alongside the all-star BEMF Vocal & Chamber Ensembles with Concertmaster Robert Mealy and the BEMF Dance Company with Choreographer Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière. Rounding out the directorial team for this must-see operatic event are Costume Designer Gwen van den Eijnde, Lighting Director Kelly Martin, Assistant Stage Director Anna Mansbridge, and Executive Producer Kathleen Fay. Following the Boston performances, the production will continue on to New York City for a concert performance on Tuesday, December 3 at 7:30pm at the Morgan Library & Museum, before a final staged performance on Saturday, December 7, 2024 at 7:30pm in Troy, NY at the historic Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.

For their 36^th consecutive season on the BEMF concert stage—starting before BEMF had its own yearly concert series—The Tallis Scholars and director Peter Phillips return on Friday, December 6, 2024 at 8pm at St. Paul Church, Cambridge. For theThese legendary voices revisit the living tradition of plainchant with a transcendent celebration for the Christmas season as they explore centuries of chant music and the polyphony constructed from it. Experience boundary-pushing chants composed by 12^th-century abbess Hildegard von Bingen, the medieval In dulci jubilo melody set by Praetorius and Pearsall, chant-based motets from the Renaissance by Lassus, Victoria, and others, and Avro Pärt’s reconceptualizing of the chant tradition, inspired in part by Eastern Orthodox practices.

The stunning keyboard virtuoso Francesco Corti joins with our own all-star BEMF Chamber Ensemble and director Robert Mealy for a one-of-a-kind event celebrating the music of Handel on Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 8pm. Celebrating the biennial conference of the American Handel Society—February 6–9, 2025 in Boston—the program will feature a solo work for harpsichord alongside two selections (No. 1 and No. 4) from Handel’s innovative Opus 4, which first established the form of the organ concerto, performed on the magnificent Richards, Fowkes & Co. Opus 10 organ at Boston’s First Lutheran Church. Following well-received appearances at BEMF’s 2021 and 2023 Festivals, this will mark Francesco Corti’s début on BEMF’s annual concert series.

Explore the turbulent crossroads of revolution, the rum industry, and the transatlantic slave trade in the Caribbean, South America, and Europe in a fascinating program with the San Francisco–based Agave in the string ensemble’s BEMF début alongside star countertenor Reginald Mobley. These GRAMMY-nominated collaborators explore works by Black British composer, rum merchant, and abolitionist Ignatius Sancho as well as Brazilian master José Mauricio Nuñes Garcia, grandson of sugar cane plantation slaves. From heartbreaking love songs to elegant chamber works and joyous expressions of faith, experience the music of a changing world through the eyes of composers whose stories are finally being told on Friday, February 14, 2025 at 8pm at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational.

A favorite of BEMF audiences since making their North American début at the BEMF’s 2009 Festival, the singers of Stile Antico offer a brilliant and vividly contrasted program assembled from selections from the ensemble’s award-winning discography to create a colorful journey through some of the greatest music of the Renaissance. Join this accomplished ensemble as they celebrate their 20^th anniversary on Friday, March 28, 2025 at 8pm at St. Paul Church, Cambridge with some of their favorite pieces by Byrd, Gibbons, Taverner, Allegri, and others.

Don’t miss a blockbuster musical event as one of Early Music’s definitive ensembles, Les Arts Florissants, are joined by the invigorating violin virtuoso Théotime Langlois de Swarte—in his eagerly anticipated BEMF début on Friday, April 4, 2025 at 8pm at NEC’s Jordan Hall in Boston. These incomparable instrumentalists commemorate the 300^th anniversary of the original publication of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in 1725. Experience this iconic masterwork anew as Vivaldi’s beloved concertos are presented alongside Venetian music that inspired the great composer—or was inspired by him—with selections by Monteverdi, Uccellini, Geminiani, and Corelli.

BEMF concludes its 35^th Season by welcoming back one of the world’s most versatile musical personalities with Jordi Savall and his legendary ensemble Hespèrion XXI on Sunday, April 13, 2025 at 3pm at NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston. A tireless researcher and an eternally engaging performer, Savall made his Boston début with BEMF in 1989 and has remained a favorite and a friend ever since. He leads the virtuosic players of Hespèrion XXI in a stunning journey through Baroque music from England, Peru, Mexico, Spain, and more.

In lieu of Pre-Concert Talks at the venue, we will present online Pre-Concert Videos with informative discussions featuring scholars and artists the week before each program—FREE to watch on YouTube or at BEMF.org.

Subscriptions and individual tickets are on sale now through the Boston Early Music Festival Box Office at 617-661-1812 or online at BEMF.org. Discounted subscription packages start as low as $81 for three in-person programs or $67.50 for three virtual programs.

The Boston Early Music Festival 2024/25 Season is presented with support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Constellation Charitable Foundation, 99.5 WCRB: Classical Radio Boston, a service of WGBH, and ArtsBoston.

VIRTUAL TICKET OPTIONS FOR ALL PROGRAMS
For the 2024/25 Season, all of our programs will be available for virtual viewing starting one to two weeks after the performance on our secure, online platform. This added convenience offers our patrons—in Boston and around the world—options to enjoy all 9 programs. BEMF will be working in partnership with Ball Square Films and Videographer Kathy Wittman, and Recording Engineer Antonio Oliart Ros to record the live performances. They will collaborate with our presented artists and ensembles to produce fully edited concert videos of their performances with BEMF to share with ticket buyers. Virtual Tickets will be included FREE with all in-person tickets or can be purchased on their own.

ABOUT THE BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL:
Recognized as the preeminent early music presenter and Baroque opera producer in North America, the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) has been credited with securing Boston’s reputation as “America’s early music capital” (The Boston Globe). Founded in 1981, BEMF offers diverse programs and activities, including one GRAMMY Award–winning and five GRAMMY Award–nominated opera recordings, an annual concert series that brings early music’s brightest stars to the Boston and New York concert stages, and a biennial week-long Festival and Exhibition recognized as the “world’s leading festival of early music” (The Times, London). The 23^rd Boston Early Music Festival will take place from June 8 to 15, 2025, and will feature a fully staged production of Reinhard Keiser’s Octavia. BEMF’s Artistic Leadership includes Artistic Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Opera Director Gilbert Blin, and Orchestra Director Robert Mealy.

For more information, images, press tickets, or to schedule an interview, please contact Kathleen Fay at 617-661-1812 or email kathy@bemf.org.

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