Sunday, June 6, 2021

virtual Boston Early Music Festival starts today!

Boston Early Music Festival goes virtual this year -- starting today -- for its biennial week-long extravaganza. While this is in some ways the same tragic situation we've been dealing with for everything, there are some silver linings, among which are:

1) You can tune in from anywhere on the planet!
2) Tickets are about 80% cheaper! (Seriously, you can do the whole thing for $150 bucks, and most of the individual concerts are $10.)
3) They're posting the Fringe festival the week after, so you get twice the festival with no scheduling conflicts or trying to get from somewhere in Back Bay to somewhere in Cambridge in five minutes! (Traditionally the Fringe is tip jar or nominal ticket price, so presumably there will be virtual tip jars and all you'll miss out on is the experience of dropping a fiver in someone's theorbo case.)
4) Performances are archived (for a limited time) so you can access them later.
5) As much as we love Jordan Hall and environs, you get to check out other venues beyond the Bostonsphere -- special mention to ACRONYM, who recorded their bit at Troy Music Hall of the perfect acoustics.
6) Amanda Forsythe

All that plus master classes and a virtual version of the famous trade show, so if you're in the market for a virginal or a crumhorn or a portative organ or a crwth, you can probably find a maker to Zoom in on.

No comments:

Post a Comment