San Diego Early Music Society

The San Diego Early Music Society is a non-profit organization founded to showcase the musical treasures of Europe’s medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, as performed on period instruments and in accordance with historical practice. The Society was established in 1981 and has presented concerts in churches, small halls, museums, and homes — settings for which the music was composed.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERT SERIES – Artists internationally renowned for their performances and recordings are presented in five to six concerts each season. World-class vocal and instrumental soloists, ensembles and chamber orchestras perform an exciting repertoire from various periods and countries.

OLD MASTERS SERIES (aka the Museum Concert Series) – Six times a year, the SDEMS and the San Diego Museum of Art co-sponsor a series of Sunday afternoon concerts featuring local performers of early music. Early music fills the acoustically and visually perfect Museum gallery hung with paintings of Renaissance and Baroque masters.

WORKSHOP – Each spring, on picturesque Palomar Mountain, students of voice and early instruments (strings, winds, and keyboard) gather for a weekend with noted faculty to improve technique, play in ensembles, and enjoy the surroundings.

HOUSE CONCERT – Once a year, members and friends are invited to a concert featuring guest artists in the intimate setting of a private home.

PROJECT OUTREACH – In cooperation with the San Diego school system, the SDEMS brings early music into the schools, often providing young people with their first chance to experience this new world of sound. (Outreach photos)

DIRECTORY – Members also receive an annual Directory that lists all members, and identifies performers, teachers, instrument makers and repairers.

REFERRAL SERVICE – The SDEMS responds to inquiries about teachers, instrument purchase and repair, and where to buy music and recordings. Local artists are recommended for parties, weddings, and festivals. The Society collaborates regularly with other San Diego classic music presenters.

Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra * Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet * Anonymous 4 * Artaria Quartet * Baltimore Consort * Michael Chance * Chanticleer * The Concord Ensemble * Ensemble Clement Janequin * Ensemble Project Ars Nova * Fortune’s Wheel * Fretwork * Freiburg Baroque Orchestra * Il Giardino Armonico * Harp Consort * Hesperion XX * John Holloway * Andrew Lawrence-King * King’s Consort * The King’s Noyse * Konrad Junghanel * Emma Kirkby * Kuijken Quartet * London Baroque * Musica Pacifica * My Lord Chamberlain’s Consort * Newberry Consort * Orlando Consort * Paul O’Dette * Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra * Piffaro * Trevor Pinnock * Rebel Consort * Jordi Savall * Sequentia * Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra * The Tallis Scholars * The Sixteen * Trio Sonnerie * Marion Verbruggen * Pieter Wispelwey

Click here to read a review of our El Mundo concert

Click here to read a review of our Asteria concert

Click here to read a review of our Julia Gooding concert

“Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto thee, oh San Diego Early Music Society, that bringeth unto our still, silent town some Christmas fare other than the Messiah and the Nutcracker and those predictable programs of carols, forever and ever. Amen.”

“This plucky little society continues to make St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church a haven for some of the globe’s leading practitioners of medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music.”

“The San Diego Early Music Society, which every year is responsible for an undue proportion of the most exciting concerts in town...” ... “The concerts presented by the San Diego Early Music Society...regularly fill St. James by-the-Sea to the rafters, attracting those music lovers who know how much delight can be provided by music before Bach and Beethoven...”

“The SDEMS never engages anything less than the very finest, internationally famous artists for its concerts.”

“Its standards are the highest. If you’re a fan of music performed as closely as possible to the original from the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras, I would urge you to buy tickets for anything the organization presents.”

1996 “Top 10 classical concerts:” Pieter Wispelwey playing J.S. Bach’s Six Suites for Baroque Cello, selected by Valerie Scher of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

2000 “Top 10 classical concerts:” Freiburg Baroque Orchestra’s all Bach concert, selected by Valerie Scher of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “In commemorating the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, the German orchestra revived a venerable aesthetic, demonstrating how music might have been performed in Bach’s era. It was a fine and fitting opening to the San Diego Early Music Society’s season.”

Mark Lester, President
Laurent Planchon, Vice President, International Series
Angela Quinn, Secretary
Peter Cramer, Treasurer
Duane Gruber, Grants Coordinator
Elizabeth Rose, Museum Series Director
Vera Kalmijn, Outreach
Steven Hendricks, Workshop
Jeff Calcara, Computer Wizard, Graphic Arts, Web Site
Kemer Thomson, Newsletter/Blog
Greta Treadgold
William Stiles
Sheila Durkin

Louis Carslake, Baroque flutist; member Music’s Re-creation
John Dornenburg, performer on viola da gamba; member of Music's Re-creation; faculty at Stanford and Sacramento
Peter Farrell, performer on cello and viola da gamba; professor emeritus UCSD
Lewis Peterman, performer on early winds and strings; SDSU faculty, member Alfonso X
Richard Glenn, performer on Renaissance and Baroque instruments faculty at Concordia University and Orange Coast College
Geoffrey Graham, organist, music director at All Soul’ Episcopal Church
Ronald Haas, maker and restorer of early keyboard instruments
Marianne Pfau, performer on recorder and Baroque oboe; USD faculty
Carol Plantamura, vocal performer; UCSD faculty
Daniel Ratelle, conductor Pacific Camerata, Mesa College faculty; choir director First Unitarian Universalist Church
Maria Teresa Riqué, General Director of ACORDE, Arts and Entertainment non-profit organization, Tijuana
Stephen Sturk, choral conductor; composer in residence, St. Paul
Ruben Valenzuela, organist, choirmaster, musicologist

The activities of the SDEMS are supported, in part, with funds provided by the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture (SDCAC), the Western Arts Federation (WESTAF), and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

This site is maintained by Jeff Calcara
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