Events
The Cincinnati Early Music Festival takes place in February each year. The ultimate goal is for this list to include any early music performance in Cincinnati whose organizers want to share it. You can also see events in calendar form instead of as a list or add the full schedule to your Google Calendar or iCal.
2025 Tapestry Concert
Rather than a single group, this Tapestry Concert will feature a variety of musicians from around Cincinnati performing early music sets of their choosing. Join us to celebrate the diverse talents of our Cincinnati early music community!
The Four Elements: Earth
7HB commences their 2024-2025 season with “The Four Elements: Earth.” Join us for music which evokes pastoral landscapes, warm hearths and windows, swirling leaves, and the repose and stillness which autumn brings. This concert will also feature a lute concerto written by our friend and frequent collaborator Chris Wilke!
Early Music Sing-A-Long: Christmas & Advent Favorites
Come and spend a Saturday morning singing early music favorites for Christmas and Advent with special guest conductors Earl Rivers, Krista Cornish Scott, and Reina Dickey. No experience required!
Bass Club Cincinnati
Please join Bass Club Cincinnati for this special concert! Jim Lambert will highlight his Viennese Violone; the special sound of this instrument will enchant you while he plays the Dittersdorf Concerto #2. The lecture/demo will include several other pieces, and Jim will answer any questions you have about the instrument and the music of the period.
Summer: Four Seasons with Seven Hills
Don’t miss 7HB’s sizzling season finale “Summer: Four Seasons with Seven Hills” featuring Baroque violinist Parastoo Heidarinejad soloing Vivaldi’s Summer concerto from The Four Seasons and Bach’s quadruple harpsichord concerto in A Minor (an arrangement of a four-violin concerto by Vivaldi)!
Spring: Four Seasons with Seven Hills
Celebrate the arrival of warmer weather and longer days with Seven Hills Baroque as we offer our third of four Four Seasons with Seven Hills installments, featuring Spring from Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons - one of the most beloved and widely recognized pieces of classical music!
Music Live at Lunch: Cincinnati Recorder Consort
Join the Cincinnati Recorder Consort for a lunchtime concert as part of Christ Church Cathedral’s Music Live at Lunch series.
Music Live at Lunch: Heri et Hodie
Join Heri et Hodie for a concert of music for Holy Week as part of Christ Church Cathedral’s Music Live at Lunch series.
A Lenten Prism
Conducted by L. Brett Scott and Krista Cornish Scott. Featuring excerpts from Musikaliches Exequien and The Seven Last Words of Jesus on the Cross by Heinrich Schutz, these well-known works are interwoven by rarely performed gems from Sulpitia Cesis, Leone Leoni, Maria Perucona and Lucrezia Vizzana, sung from the balcony as a "cloistered" ensemble featuring Christopher Wilke, theorbo.
Music Live at Lunch: Moyen Âge
Come enjoy a little medieval music on your lunch break at Christ Church Cathedral’s “Music Live at Lunch” with Moyen Âge, a Cincinnati-based early music ensemble that’s been performing medieval music since 2017.
Musical Oratory of Lent: Buxtehude, 'Membra Jesu nostri'
Sponsored by the Anerio Institute, the Oratory Singers & members of the Old St. Mary's Parish Orchestra will be performing the cantata cycle, 'Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima', (The Most Holy Limbs of Our Suffering Jesus) written by the Danish Baroque composer and organist Dieterich Buxtehude (d. 1707), who was a major influence on the music of J.S. Bach.
Gallicantus
Enjoy a world-class performance of Renaissance music from British ensemble Gallicantus in the beautiful setting and acoustic of St. Peter in Chains Basilica.
CCM Vox Antiqua: Musikalische Exequien
CCM's Vox Antiqua and guests perform Heinrich Schütz's affecting setting of funeral music, Musikalische Exequien, which displays the influence of Baroque opera and the Venetian polychoral tradition.
"The Last Rose" (Elena Kraineva & Michael Delfin)
Elena Kraineva and Michael Delfín present a program for Viola d’Amore and Harpsichord. The audience will hear compositions by Heinrich Ignaz, Franz Biber, Christoph Graupner, Domenico Scarlatti, and more, including some of the earliest known compositions for string instruments.
Music at St. Martin’s: Women Singing the Sacred
Join Heri et Hodie, treble voice ensemble, for a concert of early and contemporary sacred works featuring women composers.
2024 Tapestry Concert
Rather than a single group, this Tapestry Concert will feature a variety of musicians from around Cincinnati performing early music sets of their choosing. Join us to celebrate the diverse talents of our Cincinnati early music community!
Nerd Night & Saucy Sing-A-Long
Join emcee Douglas Easterling at the Northwood Cider Co. for early music trivia and a sing-a-long of saucy music written by some unexpected beloved composers! This is an open event—all are welcome, from the hardcore Purcell fan to the merely "Baroque-curious.”
Music Live at Lunch: Bach Ensemble
Immerse yourself in the world of Baroque music on your lunch break as talented Bach Ensemble musicians weave intricate harpsichord solos and captivating strings into a variety of timeless works.
Bach Vespers for Lent
In the solemn ambiance of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, immerse yourself in a sacred journey during our Bach Vespers. Featuring BWV 229, one of Bach’s awe-inspiring motets for double chorus, this evening transcends time and connects you to a rich tradition of spiritual contemplation.
Hortus Deliciarum: Nature in Early Music
From Herrad of Landberg in the twelfth century to Franz Joseph Haydn in the eighteenth, this oncert will explore themes of nature in early music for solo voice and harpsichord on the beautiful grounds of Hauck Botanic Garden.
Early Music Sing-A-Long
Love singing early music? Let’s do it together! All are welcome to join. Bring a smartphone or tablet if you have one, and be sure to RSVP so we can have enough music and coffee to go around.
Solo Harpsichord Recital
Harpsichordist Michael Delfín performs solo works by JS Bach, D'Anglebert, Mattheson, Scarlatti, and more.
Cincinnati New Horizons Band Ensembles
Small ensembles—including a wind quintet, brass choir, and duets—as well as soloists (with piano) will perform music of the Baroque and Renaissance for each other as part of our music education program.
Moyen Age at Design Collective
Hear the dulcet sounds of the lute, the growl of the hurdy gurdy, the sweet strings of the viol, and several other captivating instruments. Exciting and enchanting music of the 14th century played on instruments of the time.
Classical Revolution: Early Music Edition
Join us at The Loon in Northside as we relaunch our yearly Early Music Rev! Some of the best music from the Baroque and earlier can be enjoyed in a lively bar environment.
“Four Seasons with Seven Hills”: Winter Concert
Seven Hills Baroque’s second concert of their season will feature music which evokes the scenes and moods of winter: frost, icy winds, falling snow, and desolate landscapes. But winter is not always so bleak—we have also experienced the joy of playing in the snow, huddling around warm fires, and time spent around hearths and tables with loved ones. Experience these scenes and feelings—and more—through the lens of baroque music, performed on period instruments.
The Last Master: Music of Bernhard Hagen
Christopher Wilke, baroque lute, performs "The Last Master": music of Bernhard Hagen. One of the last composers to write for the lute, Hagen left a rich body of sonatas known as much for their sweeping melodic style and dramatic changes of mood as well as for their extreme technical difficulty.
JS Bach's Goldberg Variations
Harpsichordist Michael Delfín performs JS Bach's monumental Goldberg Variations for the opening concert of NKU's annual Winter Piano Pedagogy Conference.
"Baroque and Brews" at Urban Artifact
Join Seven Hills Baroque (7HB) and the Flight88 Concert Series for Baroque and Brews, a concert graciously sponsored by Flight88, a recurring classical music series at Urban Artifact—a church turned taproom in Cincinnati’s Northside Neighborhood! Grab a pint and enjoy an exciting evening of music from the Baroque and early Classical eras.
The Knox Choir
Join Knox Presbyterian Church for their traditional worship service featuring music from Heinrich Schütz's Symphoniae Sacrae III of 1650 performed with soloists, choir, and period instruments.