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Please click on the headings below to "jump" to your favorite sections!
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Get an inside look at SFEMS each week!
Over the past week, I've been hard at work proofreading our Festival Reader—which of course is available for pre-order—and I have to say, reading through each concert is making me anticipate them all!
If you are a regular concertgoer, you may have noticed that audience numbers at many concerts, SFEMS or otherwise, have been lighter in recent months. Of course, there are many good reasons for that!
That said, we are hoping that you'll give the Festival a vote of confidence by pre-ordering your tickets. While there is always a lively scene at the box office, it'll be reassuring to know that our long-anticipated Festival is truly valued and appreciated. And with the lineup we have, what's not to like?
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Best,
Derek Tam, Executive Director
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BUY NOW: Three Weeks Left Until BFX Starts!
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Be sure to join us in less than a month for the 17th biennial Berkeley Festival and Exhibition!
Over the course of eight days from June 5–12, you'll be treated to a stellar lineup of local, national, and international artists on our concert main stage—featuring returning audience favorites (Rachel Podger, Chanticleer, Vox Luminis) alongside new and exciting artists (Sollazzo Ensemble, Jean Bernard Cerin, Fire & Grace & Ash).
If that isn't enough live music for your taste, we are also excited to present the Fringe, a series of independently-produced concerts by soloists and ensembles from around the world.
In addition to all the live performances, you won't want to miss the Exhibition & Marketplace, a three-day bazaar featuring dozens of national and international makers and sellers of historical instruments, music scores, books, and paraphernalia, as well as abundant information for all early music lovers.
On top of all this, we will also be presenting several special events, including Early Music America's Young Performers Festival, a Spem in Alium flash mob (!), a collaboration with the Berkeley-Bucknell Chamber Music Collective, lectures, and even a Well-Tempered Clavier Jamboree!
Don't miss out on all the fun—get your tickets today!
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Pre-Order Today: BFX Digital Highlights, Reader, and T-Shirts
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Be fully prepared for the 2022 Berkeley Festival and Exhibition by pre-ordering your Reader, T-shirts, and your digital Festival highlights, also known as the BFX "Snapshots!"
Festival Reader: The Reader is a special book produced for each Festival, featuring program details, bespoke program notes, as well as information about Fringe concerts and the Exhibition.
A treasure trove of all things about this year’s celebration of early music, it is a bargain at $10!
Pre-orders will be accepted online through June 4, the day before the start of the Festival. They will be available for pick up before concerts or at the SFEMS Exhibition table, where they will also be available for direct purchase.
T-shirts: Be a Festival rockstar and buy a commemorative T-shirt for $15! A limited number of shirts available in S, M, L, XL, and 2XL.
Snapshots: For the first time ever, enjoy highlights from the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition from the comforts of your own home!
For our BFX “Snapshots,” we’ll be bringing highlights from about a dozen main stage concerts to you digitally.
These will be recorded live in high-quality audio and video, and will be provided to you via email within about a week after the Festival concludes on June 12.
If you’re unable to attend live, or would like a memento of what promises to be a fantastic week of concerts, this is a great way to enjoy a wide sampling of Festival delights!
Buy the entire digital package today for $50!
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Do you live in or near Berkeley and have space to share? We'd love to talk to you!
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Can you help house a musician?
Fortunately, some of our wonderful members have stepped up to help us house our BFX artists (and THANK YOU if you are one of them!)...but we still could use more help. If you have an in-law, a studio, or even rooms in your home (preferably in the Berkeley area) that you can share during the week of June 5-12, please contact our Operations Assistant, Sarah Coykendall, at scoykendall@sfems.org.
Thank you!
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Five Summer Workshops—Sign Up Now
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Join us for a celebratory return to in-person music making! As we return to summer workshops after a three-year hiatus, we are excited to bring our patented mix of music and community to you in a safe way that meets the needs of this pandemic moment. Click below to learn more about each workshop individually.
Don't forget to check your membership status for a discount!
Musical Discovery Workshop/Youth Collegium: June 19–25
Midsummer Magick on the Village Green
Pacific Boychoir Academy, Oakland
Baroque Workshop: June 26–July 2
Restoration, Revival, and Regeneration
Medieval/Renaissance Workshop: July 10–16
Lovers and Labyrinths: Songs and Dances in Circles, Celebrating Love, Life, Death, and Rebirth
Recorder Workshop: July 17–23, 2022
New Beginnings: Music for Births, Coronations and Weddings
First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley and First Church Berkeley UCC (First Congregational)
Classical Workshop: August 7–13, 2022
A Tale of Two Cities
School of the Madeleine, Berkeley
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Funeral for
Susan Hedges to be held Saturday, May 21
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Longtime SFEMS board member and administrator Susan Hedges passed away in August 2020 from complications of a stroke she had suffered in March of that year. On Saturday, May 21, at 3 PM, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, at 2300 Bancroft, Berkeley, will hold a funeral service for Susan. Anyone who is interested in details or who would like to sing in the choir may contact George Emblom, music director of St. Mark's, at GAEmblom@aol.com.
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Covid-19 Protocols for Concerts
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Please note that at least through May 31, out of an excess of concern, we will still require concert attendees to remain masked while indoors.
Like all performing arts organizations in the Bay Area, SFEMS has been carefully monitoring the latest health and safety information coming from the state and the CDC regarding in-person events. In anticipation of our upcoming season, we have put several protocols in place to protect our staff, performers, and audiences. Please refer to our website to learn more about what we're doing to keep you safe, and be sure to check back often, as we will be updating and adjusting as we receive new information. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate these developments together!
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Early Music Freelancers' Relief Fund: Final Round Now Open
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Relief fund grant recipients may apply for a twenty-fifth grant one month after the date they turned in their twenty-fourth grant applications. If you have continuing need, please resubmit your application. However, there is no need to submit documentation of recently lost work, given the paucity of gigs.
First-time grant applicants, as well as repeat applicants who have received fewer than twenty-four grants, will receive priority. (You may file for a continuing grant one month after the day you turned in your previous application.)
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SFEMS has been a leader in providing financial help to musicians. We are proud to have consistently provided grants for more than a year and a half, and we have continued to do so long after other organizations stopped providing funds to those artists so profoundly affected by the loss of work and income.
Thankfully, the demand has abated significantly as musicians have begun to return to work; in light of this, after long consideration, we have made the decision to take a pause from offering grants after this 25th round.
It is because of your generosity that SFEMS has been able to give these grants to our professional musicians for such an extended length of time, and we are grateful for all you have done to help them through these difficult times.
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Early Music Corner: Lisette quitté la plaine
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Explore a different facet of the early music world each week!
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Baritone Jean Bernard Cerin, DMA, performs "Lisette quitté la plaine" in its original melodic setting, accompanied and arranged for Baroque guitar by Richard Stone.
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"Lisette quitté la plaine" (Lisette has left the plain) is the earliest surviving Creole literary text, a poem set to music by a white Creole named Duvivier de la Mahautière sometime around 1757. It has as its narrator an enslaved black man whose beloved is gone (it is implied that she has been sent away, either to another plantation or sold to a new owner), and is remarkable in that it is a poem centered on a black person's experience—and, also, that their experience is portrayed in a sympathetic manner—highly unusual in a time when black people were either portrayed negatively or simplistically, or erased entirely, in the common narrative.
In "Lisette...", de la Mahautière combined words in the then-nascent Creole language with a popular contemporary French melody, which no doubt helped it gain in popularity. Soon, the piece traveled from de la Mahautière's native Saint-Domingue (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) to France, where, in 1778, composer and prominent Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau set the poem to a new melody, rechristening it "Chanson Nègre"—a piece considered by scholars to be a sly denunciation of slavery in the French colonies.
Eventually, the song made its way from France to the new colonies in the United States. In the late 19th century, composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk began programming Creole music (including "Lisette...") in concert settings. His sister, Clara Gottschalk Peterson, anthologized several of these pieces in "Creole Folk Tunes in Negro Dialect from New Orleans," although, in it, Lisette became "Zélim to quitte la plaine"—a slightly different title, but essentially the same song. Camille Nickerson also changed the song title in her Five Creole Songs anthology of 1942, to "Lizette, ma chêre amie.” Bringing the song back home to its point of origin, Haitian composer Ludovic Lamothe set the poem (c. 1929) to a different kind of music: the méringue, a traditional dance of Haiti.
Through all these changes, however, the song has retained its essential flavor and story—that of a man who has lost his love but still holds out hope for her eventual return.
For more information on the history behind "Lisette...", we invite you to visit https://www.lisetteproject.org. For a story of the full journey of the song, including its transformations, come hear Lisette—A Song’s Journey From Haiti and Back with Michele Kennedy, soprano, and Jean Bernard Cerin, baritone, at the BFX on Friday, June 10, at 3 PM!
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Our lively Facebook community brings you the latest SFEMS updates, contests, and more! Don't miss out on making new friends, fascinating discussions, and a chance to share the joy of early music!
5,000+ likes and counting!
Thank you, as always, to our new Facebook followers.
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Please note that this is only a summary listing—click on the button below for more information about each concert.
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Saturday, May 21–Sunday, May 22
San Francisco Bach Choir—Brahms' Requiem
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Want your early music event featured on the SFEMS Weekly Calendar? Contact us here and online at sfems.org.
To submit a listing, email Communications Manager Heidi Waterman at communications@sfems.org. Please contact us as soon as possible, but no later than the Wednesday before the Monday publication. Listings will be edited for length and clarity.
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