Early Music Alberta Society Fund

We believe music is a key part of community building:  good music makes us happy; great music transports and elevates us all.  Early Music Alberta seeks to preserve and grow the discipline of Early Music** in Edmonton and Alberta, through historically informed performances, recordings, workshops, and through innovative interdisciplinary educational programs, publications, and electronic media.

We provide opportunities for the public to hear and appreciate pieces that are rarely performed and would otherwise be forgotten. We are increasing the number of local musicians skilled in this vast repertoire and arrangements. We also bring national and international musicians to our concerts. We are building a strong network of players and audiences. We aim to become a “destination” in Canada for early music.

Early Music Alberta is a non-profit incorporated in 2010, with the mandate to preserve and develop the performance of music written prior to 1850. We have a volunteer Board of Directors, with artistic direction by Edmonton cellist and viola da gambist Josephine van Lier, internationally renowned for historically informed performance of early music.

Early music practitioners seek to discover and perform music from times past, to explore a repertory of music that is otherwise little known. Our goal is to recreate the sound worlds of earlier times by using period instruments and techniques. We base our interpretations on the accumulated evidence of original instruments, manuscripts, first editions, and the remarks of theoretical and instructional treatises, rather than on “received tradition” passed on by recent generations of performers and teachers.

The concerts, workshops, competitions, and recordings by Early Music artists are held throughout the year and connect the diverse values of artistic communities in Edmonton, bridging music, literature, history, religion, fashion, and dance, with events held in venues of historical architectural significance.  www.earlymusicalberta.ca

** ”Early music” is a broad term encompassing the beginnings of Western art music. The term designates either a repertory (European music written in the millennium between 800 to 1800, including Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classical music) or an approach toward performing any old music more “authentically” based on surviving instruments, treatises and other evidence (known as “Historical Performance”, “Period performance” or “Authentic performance”) including the tunings, arrangements and the use of period instruments.