The 44th Indianapolis Early Music Festival runs on weekends from June 24th through July 24th in the Glick Indiana History Center.
The festival's artistic director is Mark Cudek. Cudek is the director of the Early Music Department at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He's an accomplished performer who plays guitar, recorder, crumhorn, bass viol, and percussion.
"Each year for the festival we seek to balance music from the baroque and the renaissance with an occasional entry written during the medieval period. This summer we're at three and three."
"I'm especially happy about our opening on June 24. Recorder player Matthias Maute is a real favorite with the Indianapolis audience. Frankly, he's also one of my favorite performers. I encouraged the group Rebel to make a program featuring him."
"They'll be followed on the Sunday of that same weekend by the group Tempesta di Mare. The name comes from a violin concerto. It translates as ‘the sea storm' and they are indeed a tempestuous ensemble. They're bringing a program called ‘Roman Nights' with vocal and instrumental music by Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frederick Handel. Their singer, Clara Rottsolk is a rising star in the world of early music."
"The weekend of July 8 is quite packed. My own Baltimore Consort opens the weekend on Friday with a regular concert and then on Saturday morning we'll host a free children's concert. That Sunday evening Ronn McFarlane presents Viva Vivaldi and there's even a chance that he may play a few of his own original songs."
"The Festival will wrap up on the weekend of July 22. On Friday the award winning young group Plaine and Easie plays in an evening of music for strings and voices. The Sunday finale will indeed be a finale. !Sacabuche! brings a show based on the experiences of the Jesuit Cardinal Ricci in China. Ricci went to China to bring Christianity and in many ways took back more than he brought. The large ensemble combines instruments, voices, video of Ricci's great map and narration from the period and the present."