This week on Harmonia is our second installment of highlights from the 2005 Boston Early Music Festival.

First up is a a celebration of the Eastern European thread that ran through this year's festival.  The repertoire of 18th century Russian chamber music that would have been heard at a manor house in the country was the theme of a concert entitled "Music at the Russian Manor House," featuring violinists Andrey Reshetin and Maria Krestinskaya and harpsichordist Peter Sykes, and works from composers such as Ivan Jarnovik and Luigi Madonis.

Another performance in this theme was that of ensemble Talisman, in a concert entitled "Stesha! Gypsy Primadonna of 1820s Moscow," conceived as a tribute to Russian-Gypsy singer Stepanida Soldatova, born in 1787.  It featured director Oleg Timofeyev, Vassily Romani, and Vadim Kolpakov on Russian seven stringed guitar, Etienne Abelin on violin, and two very different singers, early music specialist Ann Harley and Muscovite gypsy singer Tamara Cherepovskaia, performing songs of the Roma tradition.

Watch a performance of The Kolpakov Trio, featuring Tamara Cherepvskaia and Eugene Hutz from the group "Gogol Bordello."

Another concert at this year's festival with an Eastern European theme was given by the group Solamente Naturali, who brought a mix of theatrics and light-hearted energy to a concert of music from a collection of Slovakian themes gathered together around 1730.  The manuscript itself was compiled by a violinist, who wrote only the melody lines, and the other parts were to be improvised.

One of the yearly highlights of the festival is a performance by the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, directed by Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs.  The title of this year's concert was "Five Concerti and a Magnificat," and featured music of Georg Philip Telemann.

Our new release thise week is a recording of Antonia Padoani Bembo's setting of the Seven Psalms of David, performed by Boston based ensemble La Donna Musicale.