The London International Festival of Early Music takes place each year in London in Blackheath Halls. This year, for the first time in many years, all the Early Music Forums were represented in the Exhibition Hall with a shared stand. In past years, TVEMF usually went along as London falls within their catchment area, but this year, the chairs of all the EMFs agreed to share the cost of a stand, along with NEMA (the National Early Music Association), which has just launched its new website.
The purpose of being there was primarily to raise awareness about the early music forums and the workshops we run, and it was surprising how many people we talked to who didn’t know about it. Our chair, Kirsten, was there for the three days of the Exhibition, and was helped by Vicky Helby and her husband Alan of TVEMF, Janet Tanburn of EEMF and Tim of SEMF. We were also glad to have help from Irene, a TVEMF member. Overall, the Festival was a great success in that we talked to lots of people, gave out a lot of leaflets, and were generally buoyed by the amount of enthusiasm and interest in early music generally.
The Festival itself was very focused on recorders, both in the concert programming and the Exhibition Hall, and perhaps this was not surprising as the Festival’s Artistic Director was Erik Bosgraaf, award-winning Dutch recorder virtuoso and musicologist. There was little by way of choral offerings, although the Evensong service on the final day at St Michael’s and All Angels Church made up for it with a wonderful performance by the Voces 8 Scholars.
Hopefully this will become a regular feature in the EMF calendar, and we always welcome members to come down and help out on the stand, or just to say hello and take in some of the wonderful concerts, talks and workshops on offer. And the Exhibition Hall is a great place to spend time and money in – it’s great to see so many thriving instrument makers in particular, and hopefully many more early music enthusiasts will find their way to our the EMF workshops as a result of the Festival.
