Houston Early Music Festival Announces 2017 Events

Five Houston music organizations join forces to stage an extravaganza of early music for the fifth anniversary of the Houston Early Music Festival, February 11-19, 2017 at venues across the city. Festival performances include the Houston debut of ensemble Profeti della Quinta, performing works of Salomone Rossi, an Italian Jewish composer who broke barriers of discrimination in the late Renaissance to become a renowned composer of the Mantuan court of the Gonzagas, a multi-media collaboration with Museum of Fine Arts Houston for Rameau's Les Indes galantes, motets from the Bach family as well as J.S. Bach's virtuosic cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen for soprano and trumpet.

Outreach events include a vocal masterclass led by acclaimed soprano Sherezade Panthak, and a colloquium on Bach's Little Organ Book, culminating in a performance of the entire work by organ students from Rice University and the University of Houston.

HEMF features a number of local and international early-music experts and recording artists including the ensemble Profeti della Quinta, Gregory Barnett (Chair of Musicology at Rice University), Kevin Clark (Piping Rock Singers Director), Matthew Dirst (Ars Lyrica Houston Artistic Director), Rick Erickson (Bach Society Houston Director), Nathaniel Mayfield (natural trumpet), Daniel Melamed (Professor of Musicology at Indiana University), Sherezade Panthaki (soprano), and Antoine Plante (Mercury Artistic Director). The Festival includes a wide array of early music repertoire, including masterpieces by Baroque composers J.S. Bach, Rameau, Scarlatti, and Vivaldi, as well as Renaissance works by composers Dering, Gibbons, and Janequin.

Seeking to capitalize on the local growth of early music programming and period-instrument expertise, HEMF was founded in 2011 as an international platform for showcasing Houston's growing talent pool and flourishing early music organizations. HEMF 2017 is sponsored by partner organizations Ars Lyrica Houston, Bach Society Houston, Houston Early Music, Mercury, and Piping Rock Singers. The Combined efforts of these distinctive and innovative early music organizations provide an excellent educational platform and multiple opportunities to bring greater awareness to Houston's extraordinarily diverse and robust arts scene. The 2017 Houston Early Music Festival is generously funded in part by a grant from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

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