For As Many As Will

This Monday, join my friends in Seven Times Salt for their tour of English Country Dance tunes! (I know they'd also appreciate a donation if you're able.)

Salomone Rossi and his Innovations

Composer Salomone Rossi is an important Jewish composer of the late Renaissance/early Baroque periods. But did you also know that he worked with Monteverdi, bridged the gap between the "old" and "new" styles, and wrote madrigals? Early Music Sources has all the details!

Bach Index

Looking for a piece of music to fit certain parameters? Check out this incredible resource!

Vocal Music Instrumentation Index

Music of Black Composers

Thrilled to see some music of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges on this list! Next step: more early music!

Music of Black Composers Database

Black Musicians in Early Music

In case you missed it, take an hour and listen to this fantastic first conversation sponsored by Early Music America and Handel and Haydn Society AND THEN see what you can change in the places you work.

The Renaissance wasn't white

Like any historical record, art is a reflection of the perspective of the "victor". Our modern concept of the Renaissance is overwhelmingly full of white people, but the reality was somewhat different.

The Black Presence in the European Renaissance

Choral Music by Black Composers

Starting to plan for next season? How about including music by Black composers? Sacred, secular, early, modern... this resource is a great place to get started!

Non-idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers

Black Early Music

This Early Music Monday let's talk about Black Early Music, because it's there, it's awesome, it's frequently ignored, and we need to program more of it (year-round, not just in February)! Here's what's in the archive so far, and I look forward to adding to it!

Heinrich Schütz

Faced with the reality of being a musician during a period of intense upheaval (and war), Schütz made the best of it by traveling for strategic study breaks in Venice and moving around to stable court positions. The help of Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel didn't hurt either...

Heinrich Schütz (German: [ʃʏt͡s]; 18 October [O.S. 8 October] 1585^[1] – 6 November 1672^[2]) was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He is credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany and continuing its evolution from the Renaissance into the Early Baroque. Most of his surviving music was written for the Lutheran church, primarily for the Electoral Chapel in Dresden. He wrote what is traditionally considered to be the first German opera, Dafne, performed at Torgau in 1627, the music of which has since been lost, along with nearly all of his ceremonial and theatrical scores.

He is commemorated as a musician in the Calendar of Saints of some North American Lutheran churches on 28 July with Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.

Heinrich Schütz ( German: ; 18 October [ O.S. 8 October] 1585 - 6 November 1672) was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century.

… read more on Wikipedia…

O Maria

Early Music Sources does a deep dive into some gorgeous 17th-century monody! But let's also remember that "beautiful skin" meant different things in different times/cultures and art can unfairly impose one standard on everyone. (…and the Virgin Mary most definitely was not a white European…)