Throughout Festival Week, enjoy artwork created by children of families who have recently joined our community, having left their troubled homelands in other parts of the world. The exhibit will encircle the mainstage space at FAR Center from Opening Night, Sunday, through Friday night. During evening performances, you will be surrounded by the visual art of young children who have had to leave their homes behind, while you are immersed in the music of those who had much the same experience so many centuries ago. We are grateful to our new neighbors for sharing their artwork with us and for contributing their talents to our festival. Thank you and welcome to Bloomington!
Schedule:
2:00pm - What’s that Sound?
The Hurdy Gurdy!
Learn the fascinating history of this medieval wheel-crank instrument & the basics of technique from a world-renowned traditional musician and accomplished performer.
Led by Tomás Lozano
Presentation runs 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Venue: Lotus Fire Bay 105 S. Rogers Street
5:30pm - Al Tayr Ensemble
The Journey of Abendino
(Madrid, Spain) Expelled from his birthplace of Granada by the command of the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the Sephardic Jew Abendino lived in exile and traveled across the Mediterranean to Sirkedji, Istanbul, where he eventually resettled. During his journey, Abendino came into contact with a variety of cultures, religions, and music, and survived many dangers along the way . In a musical narration of the movements and experiences of Abendino, Al Tayr Ensemble combines Medieval and Renaissance compositions from the Cancionero de Palacio and the Codex Squarcialupi, among other sources, with traditional music from the Sephardic, Andaluz, Balkan and Anatolian repertoire.
Al Tayr Ensemble is an instrumental trio based in Madrid, Spain specializing in early Andalucian traditional music encompassing Arabic, Sephardic, and European Spanish genres. Member Jon Wasserman, a specialist in plucked stringed instruments, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Classical Guitar and Ethnomusicology and a Masters Degree in Historical Plucked String Instruments, both from Indiana University. In 2022, he released a CD with Duo Isanta & Wasserman called “Tonos Humanos” of 17th and 18th century Spanish music. Alberto Espinosa Díaz is a percussionist in traditional and Middle Eastern musics who has studied under masters Yshai Afterman, Zohar Fresco, and Kaveh Sarvarian. He holds a degree in Musicology from the UCM and specialized in Percussion at the CPM Victoria de los Ángeles while also studying modern drums and Jazz. Currently, he is pursuing a Master's degree in Interpretation and Research in Early Music at ESMUC. Olga Rodon is a Spanish recorder player dedicated to the fields of musical performance and management. In recent years she has performed in several festivals in Spain such as the Festival de Música Antigua de Granada, Festival de Música Antigua de Lorca, and Early Music Morella.
Al Tayr Ensemble is a BLEMF Emerging Ensemble.
5:00pm - Pre-Concert Discussion (screened) with Jermaine Butler, ethnomusicologist and specialist in Middle Eastern traditional music & culture, and members of Al Tayr Ensemble
Venue: Screening at Lotus Firebay 105 S. Rogers Street
8:00pm - Forgotten Clefs
Surviving Inquisition
(Bloomington, IN) Exploring Spanish and Sephardic music over a 400-year span, Surviving Inquisition traces the journey of Sephardic Jews from the 13th century in Alfonso el Sabio’s Castile, through the early years of the Inquisition in late 15th century Catholic Spain, to Italy in the early 17th century, where many Jews lived following expulsion. Using European and Arabic instruments, Surviving Inquisition intertwines traditional Sephardic tunes with Catholic music from Medieval manuscripts; sets music of the likely converso Juan del Encina (1468-1530) alongside that of the Spanish Catholics Juan de Anchieta (1462-1523) and Christobal de Morales (1500-1553); and moves between secular Italian songs and sacred Hebrew psalms in music of the Jewish composer Salamone Rossi (1570-1630), living in diaspora in early 17th-century Mantua, Italy.
Forgotten Clefs Renaissance Wind Ensemble was founded in Bloomington, Indiana in 2014 and specializes in the European wind band repertoire of the Renaissance and early Baroque. Almost ten years on, in 2023, Forgotten Clefs toured Montana with the Musikanten Montana, returned to Durham for the North Carolina HIP Festival, performed with Schola Cantorum of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, Virginia, and had their Pittsburgh premiere with choral-instrumental music of William Byrd under direction of Alan Lewis and his Calvary Schola. The ensemble’s annual educational outreach program, “Shawms and Stories,” brings musical storytelling to schools, libraries, and community centers in South-Central Indiana with support from the Brown County Community Foundation and Indiana Arts Commission.
7:15pm | Pre-Concert Discussion with Renaissance music scholar Giovanni Zanovello and member of Forgotten Clefs, multi-instrumentalist C. Keith Collins
Venue: FAR Center for Contemporary Arts 505 W. 4th Street
