Dear Friends:

As we come nearer to the close of our once-in-a-lifetime Centennial Season, I'd like to invite you to one more important celebration here at Cal Performances: the 2006 Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, our biennial exploration of the best in early music. One of my favorite Cal Performances initiatives, this prestigious international event has been drawing early music lovers from around the world to the UC Berkeley campus since it was originally established in 1990. I hope you'll consider joining us as we welcome the return of this exciting week of concerts, lectures, symposia, and master classes devoted to this fascinating genre of music.

A Special Family Emphasis at the Festival
This year, we're inviting the whole family to discover the many pleasures of early music with performances such as Baroque Carnival (June 9 & 10), a precursor to the modern-day circus that will appeal to early music aficionados as well as first-timers. (Ages 16 and under are also half-price!) Performed in the intimate artistic setting of Zellerbach Playhouse, Baroque Carnival recreates the splendor of a 17th-century Roman festival, complete with tumblers, jugglers, acrobats, and processions, plus period musicians and singers. And on Saturday June 10, join us for Early Music for Families, a free Festival event held at International House on the UC Berkeley campus. Audience members will have a chance to hear, see, and touch as young musicians demonstrate a variety of instruments used to play Renaissance and Baroque music.

A Marriage of Music and Scholarship
As always, like the genre of early music itself, the Berkeley Festival will also feature a plethora of inspired, impeccable musicianship fused with revelatory scholarship. Festival performances will explore such interesting themes as the continuing relevance of 16th-century conflicts (Chanticleer's La Guerre: Triumph & Tragedy, June 4); a maverick composer's flouting of convention in writing sacred works for the female voice at the Court of Versailles in the 17th century (Le Poème Harmonique, June 7); and the musical embodiment of amour courtois (courtly love) as it was lived and practiced in the medieval courts of Northern Europe (Asteria, June 9).

And on a more contemporary exploratory note, learn more about many of the interesting behind-the-scenes recording and marketing issues facing early music artists today as they study, perform, and excite the public about their music. Join David Douglass of The King's Noyse, Vincent Dumestre of Le Poème Harmonique, and Skip Sempé of Capriccio Stravagante at free symposium, titled Early Music As Popular Music (June 9, 2-4 pm), where the discussion will center around the question of how early music practitioners have adapted to a new age in which "historical authenticity" is no longer the central selling point of early music performance.

Plus, Vivaldi by Candlelight, a Fierce Competition, a Musical Marketplace, and more!
The Berkeley Festival & Exhibition is truly a collaborative undertaking in every sense of the word and there are many exciting events sponsored by our partners during this weeklong celebration. In addition to four performances presented by San Francisco Early Music Society (including Asteria's mentioned above) and Chanticleer, the Festival will include the Philharmonia Chamber Players (performing Vivaldi's Four Seasons), the American Bach Soloists and Henry I. Goldberg International Young Artists Competition in which six outstanding vocalists competing for the Laurette Goldberg First Prize; and the always-spirited Berkeley Festival Exhibition & Marketplace, featuring instruments, publications, recordings, accessories, "mini-concert" demonstrations of instruments, and many of the world's finest craftsmen and builders. Sponsored by our good friends at Early Music America, the exhibit is free and open to the public.

Whatever Berkeley Festival event you choose to attend, whether it be a free symposium, the Exhibition at First Congregational Church, or the premiere of Baroque Carnival in Zellerbach Playhouse, I urge you to come join us sometime next week on the beautiful UC Berkeley campus and discover "this remarkable institution on the American musical scene" (The New York Times).

For more information, see our website:

Sincerely,

Robert Cole
Director, Cal Performances