Online Classes
While recognizing that virtual learning cannot replace the in-person experience, we’ve launched “AEM Online” – four classes each weekend taught by different faculty members. Our goal is to feature as many faculty members as possible while also giving students a chance to learn and interact with each other. As we work to offset deep community financial losses, registration fees fund the work of the teachers and organizers of the program.

Amherst Early Music Festival ONLINE
New Online Weekend classes!
November 7 & 8, with faculty James Howard Young, Daniel Elyar, Norbert Rodenkirchen, and Joanna Blendulf.
November 14 & 15, with faculty Michael Barrett, Liza Malamut, Martha Bishop, and Debra Nagy
November 21 & 22, AEM hosts the Fall Texas Toot! Directed by Danny Johnson and Susan Richter, with faculty Mary Springfels, Frances Blaker, Tish Berlin, Jennifer Carpenter, Peter Maund, Saskia Coolen, Annette Bauer, Sarah Mead, Christa Patton, Ros Morley, Pat Neely, Priscilla Herreid.

Organizational Health
In addition to providing continuity to our broader community, the AEM board has prioritized keeping operations running so that we will be in a position to present the events we know and love when it is safe again. Our annual operating budget depends on individual donations, especially those received or pledged during the Festival. Without that help we are in a tenuous position with regards to meeting financial obligations and maintaining bare-bones functionality. Our generous Board and friends put together a Crisis Matching Fund of $51,000 to meet donations to AEM dollar for dollar. By the end of the Online Festival we had exceeded the match!

All of us in the AEM community – enthusiasts, performers, scholars, craftsmen, and organizers – have built AEM over the past 57 years into the largest provider of early music workshops in North America. We’ve come all this way together, and together we will get through this. --Marilyn Boenau, Executive Director