Festival Concerts

All events are part of the Amherst Early Music Festival, June 29 to July 13, 2025 on the campus of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. All concerts are at 7:30 pm, except the opera, which begins at 8 pm. Guests are asked to register for the Opera, no tickets to other events are required.  Entrance is general admission.

Lautenschlagen Du edle Kunst Lute Music in Late Renaissance Germany with Paul O'Dette Tuesday July 1, 7:30 p.m.
Image		Lutenist Paul O'Dette, with music of German Renaissance composers Melchior Neusidler, Matthias Reymann, Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse, Gregorius Huwet and Adrian Denss
Der getreue Music-Meister - Baroque Academy Faculty Concert Thursday, July 3, 7:30 p.m.
Image		With Baroque Academy Faculty: Julie Andrijeski violin, Phoebe Carrai cello, Kathryn Cok harpsichord, Saskia Coolen recorder, Sarah Cunningham viol, Heather Miller Lardin double bass, Kathie Stewart flute, and Wouter Verschuren bassoon.
Baroque Opera: Dafne by Georg Reutter Friday, July 4, 8:00 p.m.
Image		Musical direction by Richard Stone and stage direction by Nell Snaidas, with Jennifer Ellis Kampani, vocal coach, Lawrence Rosenwald, language coach, Dorothy Olsson and Peggy Murray, historical dance, Ronnie Snader, costumes, and Paul Guttry, sets and props. Georg Reutte's Dafne (1734), is a festa teatrale composed for the imperial family in Vienna. Drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses of classical antiquity, the opera sets the myth of woodland nymph Daphne, her desperate flight from Apollo, lovesick from Cupid’s poisoned arrow, and her magical transformation. Guests are asked to register in advance.
Faculty Concert: A Wunderkammer of Early Music I Saturday, July 5, 7:30 p.m.
Image		A variety show of early music through the ages performed by wonderful AEM faculty using many different instruments and voices. Program will include music from Germany and the German lands: Medieval love songs, Renaissance consort music, high Baroque sonatas, and fantasies that will delight and inspire!
Festival Lecture - Demonstration The Cosmopolitan: Oswald von Wolkenstein (1377-1445) Tuesday, July 8, 7:30 p.m.
Image		A lecture-demonstration by Benjamin Bagby and Lisa Solomon, (voices), and Lawrence Rosenwald (texts, translations, and historical background) The three faculty members of this year’s medieval program will discuss the figure of the amazingly prolific Tirolean poet and adventurer, Oswald von Wolkenstein. During a long career, he managed to travel throughout Europe (and according to him, as far as Persia), in the service of kings and emperors. His adventures are recounted in a large body of monophonic song, preserved in several magnificent manuscripts which we can access today. He made himself (or his poetic persona) the center of his work, with his image becoming a powerful brand: the elegantly-dressed but stout, tough ‘Lebenskünstler' with a missing eye. Through his songs we experience his political battles, love affairs, later family life and always, his enormous ego. But he also had a tender side, vulnerable and self-ironic, a love of languages (he tells us he speaks ten of them) and a curiosity about musical composition, also polyphony. This most versatile and mercurial of all poet-musicians was unmatched in his omnivorous understanding of European musical traditions at the end of the Middle Ages.
Vogelbuch: Music for recorder with Sarah Jeffery and friends Thursday, July 10, 7:30 p.m.
Image		An evening of music with Sarah Jeffery, one of the world’s foremost promoters of the recorder, and a passionate champion of both early and contemporary music.
Buxtehude, Bach, & Bach Friday, July 11, 7:30 p.m.
Image		The Festival's Choral Workshop, Directed by Anna Lenti. Program will include pieces by Dieterich Buxtehude (1637 – 1707): Herzlich lieb hab ich dic, O Herr, BuxWV41, Johann Ludwig Bach (1677-1731) Unsere trubsal, and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-175) Nach dir Herr verlanget mich, BWV 150.
Faculty Concert: Wunderkammer of Early Music II Saturday, July 12, 7:30 p.m.
Image		A variety show of early music through the ages performed by wonderful AEM faculty using many different instruments and voices. Program will include music from Germany and the German lands: Medieval love songs, Renaissance consort music, high Baroque sonatas, and fantasies that will delight and inspire!