Reporting from the Boston Early Music Festival

This year's music critics annual meeting will take place in Boston where the Boston Early Music Festival is underway. About 30 card-carrying members of the Music Critics Association of North America (including yours truly) are in Beantown to indulge in the early music scene here. We've will be hearing a number of concerts and talking with the folks who have made this festival a big success since 1980 (its inaugural year).

Here is today's schedule:

5 pm  - CONCERT - Newberry Consort
David Douglass and Ellen Hargis, directors
Rosa das Rosas: Cantigas de Santa Maria
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall

8:00 - CONCERT - Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra
Robert Mealy, director
The Birth of the Orchestra: Extravagant and sonorous sounds of Paris and Rome, c.1700
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall

11:00 - CONCERT - Atalante
Erin Headley, director
Reliquie di Roma: Lamentarium
Emmanuel Church

Tomorrow we have a couple of panels and then more concerts:

5:00 - CONCERT - Gli Incogniti
Amandine Beyer, director
Stylus Phantasticus: Pandolfi-Mealli, Schmelzer, Bertali, and Froberger
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall

5:30 - Pre-Opera Talk
Members of the "Almira" Directorial Team
Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College

6:40 - FANFARE - Opening Fanfare with members of the
Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra - Lobby,
Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College

7:00 - OPERA - Handel’s "Almira"
Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College

11:15-  CONCERT - Siobhán Armstrong, harp and Róisín
Elsafty, voice Má Bhionn Tú Liom Bí Liom:
Irish Medieval Songs
Emmanuel Church

Saturday will bring more panels and another set of concerts:

2:30 - CONCERT - Hespèrion XXI
Jordi Savall, director
Istanbul: Dimitrie Cantemir's The Book of the
Science of Music and the Ottoman, Sephardic &
Armenian traditions
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall

8:00 - CHAMBER OPERA - Double Bill
Marc-Antoine Charpentier's "
La Descente d’Orphée
ux Enfers" and "La Couronne de Fleurs"
Nw England Conservatory's Jordan Hall

11:00 - CONCERT - Tragicomedia and Friends
Stephen Stubbs, director
Singen, Spielen, Tanzen, Trinken
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall 

Sunday is simply:

12:30 - CONCERT
Paul Leenhouts, director
Angeli, Zingare e Pastori: Symbols & Allegories in
Italian Renaissance Music
New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall