The 2025 Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents eight 2025 festival performances of early chamber music performed on period instruments in Eastsound through July. Titled “Renaissance to Baroque: The Italian Canzona,” it features four specialists performing on instruments of the Renaissance including Vicki Boeckman on Renaissance recorders of various sizes, Tina Chancey on Renaissance viols of various sizes, Jeffrey Cohan on Renaissance transverse flute, and Anna Marsh on dulcian, the Renaissance bassoon. Concerts will be held on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. at the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church, 107 Enchanted Forest Road in Eastsound. Suggested donation is $20-$3. Ages 18 and under are free. For more info, visit www.salishseafestival.org/orcas.
The complete schedule for the 2025 Salish Sea Early Music Festival:
Jan. 22: The Canzona 2025
The “Canzonettes” return after two years with an entirely new program focusing on the birth of the Canzona inspired by early 16th-century chansons and evolving into the early 17th-century Baroque sonata. Featuring special guest Renaissance specialist and innovative improviser Tina Chancey from Hesperus in Washington, D.C.
Feb. 26: The Chaconne with Les Voix Humaines
Les Voix Humaines, the widely celebrated prize-winning duo of viols from Montreal, joins us for a program centering on the Chaconne but extending from the early 17th century through Johann Sebastian Bach.
March 12: The Trio Sonata
Trio sonata masterpieces by Georg Philipp Telemann, Louis-Gabriel Guillemain and Jean Baptiste Quentin le jeune with our Musica Alta Ripa friends from Hannover.
April 9: European Tour 1690-1790
An excursion through a century of transformation and diversity by decade and culture within the Baroque and classical periods, through the perspective of composers for harpsichord and flute from France, Italy, Scotland, Germany and Ukraine.
May 7: The Musique de la Chambre of Louis XIV
The King’s court musical establishment is to be represented by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Marin Marais, Jacques Hotteterre, etc., including music designated for the king’s bedtime, evening concerts and banquets, with guests from New York and Baltimore.
May 21: Concerti from the Court of Frederick the Great
A completely new assortment of concerti for harpsichord and flute from the illustrious members of the musical establishment of flutist Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, including CPE Bach, Johann Joachim Quantz and the king himself.
June 11: Beethoven’s Flute, Viola and Guitar
Repertoire abounds for this popular ensemble during Beethoven’s lifetime of guitar, viola and flute. With outstanding violinist and violist Elizabeth Blumenstock.
July 16: Johann Sebastian Bach
Spanish harpsichordist Irene Roldàn from Basel and Jeffrey interpret Bach’s phenomenal music for flute and harpsichord.
Jeffrey Cohan. Photo by Tate Cohan.
