Courtesy of Les Délices
Charles Sullivan, executive and artistic director of Early Music Now, is amused by the irony: To most of his audience, the ancient music they present in concert is brand new. The “early music” movement gathered force in the 1970s as a new generation of classically trained performers explored the music that came before the European classical tradition—the largely forgotten, unperformed work of Renaissance and medieval composers. In the early years, the early music movement was sometimes closer to archeology than the performing arts, but Sullivan, who took charge of EMN in 2001, was determined to move beyond narrow expectations and definitions.
EMN’s scope as a concert presenter has broadened, but Sullivan adds, “The style and performance of early music groups had also changed—from being snooty and academic to more real—to the realization that this was music written by living composers to be played by living performers for a living audience.”
Finding the boundaries of “early” has always been a challenge. Sullivan likes to recount the drubbing he took during his first season with EMN for programming too much Baroque music—at the expense of the earlier repertoire the audience had come to expect. Several years later, Sullivan coined a tagline encapsulating his vision: “Crossing Borders, Crossing Time.” In recent seasons EMN has booked national touring ensembles specializing in early music from the Near East and Baroque music from Latin America. In 2010, EMN presented the British viol ensemble Fretwork in a performance of contemporary composer Orlando Gough’s The World Encompassed: Sir Francis Drake, a sonic evocation of Drake’s voyage of exploration inspired by music from 16th-century England as well as the indigenous people he encountered on the way. The concert even included a visual dimension: a giant world map with a marker, moving to show Drake’s progress across the globe.
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“So many younger groups have new ideas—based in scholarship but with an awareness of music as a living art form,” Sullivan continues. “It’s not as curatorial as it once was. The music doesn’t reside only on the page but in the performance—and in the ears of the audience.”
This weekend, as in past Februarys, EMN presents a concert with a Valentine’s Day theme. Cleveland’s Les Délices will perform amorous and romantic French Baroque music in the visually dazzling, acoustically inviting setting of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. “The program portrays all aspects of love—from anguish to exultation, and ends on a happy note,” Sullivan says. The group’s lutenist, Nigel North, will conduct a workshop with UW-Milwaukee guitar students, and the full quartet will perform excerpts from their Valentine’s Day program in a free concert, 11 a.m.-noon on Saturday, Feb. 14, at the East Library.
Les Délices will give a 4 p.m. lecture followed by a reception and a 5 p.m. concert on Saturday, Feb. 14 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 914 E. Knapp St. For tickets, call 414-225-3113 or visit earlymusicnow.org.
