SSEMF bringing ambitious all-Bach program to Orcas

— from Jeffrey Cohan  for Salish Sea Early Music Festival —

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival (SSEMF) is pleased to present its most ambitious all-Bach program ever in Eastsound with soloists and period instrument chamber orchestra next Saturday.

We are deeply moved that many of you have provided additional donations to support our eight 2019 programs on Orcas Island and we’re appealing this once to anyone who would consider doing so as well. Although your presence at our concerts is your greatest gift to us, we would not be able to offer this programming without additional financial support.

In 2019 we feature sixteen period instrument specialists from around the globe and the Pacific Northwest.  All are passionate explorers of musical landscapes and expressive realms from earlier times and we are pleased that you share our enthusiasm for both familiar and rarely heard early chamber music on period instruments. Your donations help us ensure that we continue to be on the forefront of early music activity. For nine years the Salish Sea Early Music Festival has provided world class period instrument performances on Orcas and around the Puget Sound with musicians from Europe and all around the United States and Canada. Alongside well-loved repertoire, we bring modern ­day premieres of unpublished works,  We explore unfamiliar musical genres and instrumental textures with a fresh new approach that we believe would have resonated with the composers and is profoundly moving today. We’re a cooperative enterprise that, thanks to your participation, feeds all of us with inspiration. We have no administrative expenses whatsoever (all is volunteer) and our publicity and other expenses are kept at a minimum, We are the most prolific group performing early music, or possibly of chamber music of any kind for that matter, in the Pacific Northwest, with 84 concerts included in the 2019 Festival alone.

Your donations give us the final lift that enables this endeavor. We couldn’t do it without you. An unusually high percentage of our funding comes through admission donations at the door – a phenomenal exception among similar arts organizations. And as we are committed to offering an opportunity for everyone in the community to experience this music regardless of contribution, our “suggested donation” is emphatically a free will offering and those 18 and under are especially welcomed for free. However donations at the door are not sufficient and we do depend on your financial support in order that we might compensate these wonderful artists for their efforts and time away from intensely busy performance schedules and for their travel expenses. 

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival is proud to be an affiliate organization of Early Music America, which develops, strengthens, and celebrates early music and historically informed performance in North America. All donations to SSEMF through Early Music America are fully tax-deductible as permitted by law. The Salish Sea Early Music Festival is a non-profit organization in Washington State.