EMAg Features

Percussionist Rex Benincasa writes about adding sounds and spices to music where there's little or no historical guidance, from the European high Baroque to Mediterranean North Africa and the court of the Tang Dynasty. Much of what he plays was never written down.

'I was fresh out of grad school and desperately trying to make it as a freelance singer. I had patched together part-time arts administration and hustling. I was auditioning, taking miserable gigs, and commuting up to three hours...I was doing so much more than a 9-to-5, and yet, people still asked what my "real" job was...'

Seattle’s SHAK, Chicago’s Stevenson High School, and a new start-up, Lute4Kids in upstate New York, are among the few U.S. early-music programs devoted to hands-on, pre-collegiate education. It’s a pipeline the field must nurture if it’s to thrive.

Julia Bengtsson has found her footing as an acclaimed dancer, choreographer, and unstoppable entrepreneur. At the 2025 EMA Virtual Summit, Oct. 18, Bengtsson will co-present 'Anatomy of a Dance,' demonstrating connections between music and dance, followed by a brief performance.

From the Publications Director: 'There’s an old joke about the social sciences where the exam questions are the same year after year but it’s the correct answers that change. The early-music field isn’t so different, where there’s a fundamental ambition — how did it sound when it was new? — but the ways in which that’s presented, and how it comes across for the listener, seem to change with each generation.'

Four Japanese boys, students at a Jesuit missionary school in the 1580s, were sent on an eight-year tour of Europe. Tracing this fascinating but fraught history for a concert program meant accepting a host of practical, historical, and ethical challenges.

Presenters and university concert series have been a place to catch some of the best period instrument ensembles on tour. We speak with a range of presenters and learn that while that’s becoming a harder sell at some venues, other locations have a loyal audience with open ears.

As we discover more about historical women musicians and share their stories with a 21st-century audience, writes keyboardist and theorist Paula Maust, we must create a narrative that does not put the protagonist in a position of deference to the important men around her.

'As regards my professional activities, life has really been divided in two — the scholarly and the practical, you might say. It’s maybe not so different from the early-music field as a whole, although I wish it were not divided at all.'

Baroque violinist, composer, and singer-song-writer Rebecca Scout Nelson is among the most intriguing musicians on today's historical performance scene, finding her voice in both early music and sounds that are entirely personal and confessional.