Early Late Night in the beginning of December!

While early music concerts nowadays are often high-profile events held in large concert halls and churches, it has not always been like that. Back in the day, this popular music of its time was also performed at home for leisure, and at private parties and balls to entertain and delight guests who were eating, drinking and relaxing.

From this point of view, it is doubtful whether the new trend of late night concerts, where the audience can enjoy not only a high qualíty performance, but also a cosy place to sit or even lie down, is that much new. Could we call it ”back to basics” perhaps?

Nevertheless, the trend successfully started few years ago and evening concerts with a new level of cosiness, have been held successfully in, for instance, New York and Berlin ... and now, it is Stockholm's turn!

SEMF, in keeping with its traditions, is at the forefront of new concepts. Can you imagine one of the rooms in the concert hall Musikaliska becoming your livingroom for a night, where you can sit or lie comfortably back in armchairs or on mattresses and let a fascinating live performance of baroque music carry you through time?!

With the support from talented Swedish musicians Per Gross, Nora Roll and Anders Ericson, who are more than eager to try new ways of presenting the early music heritage, everything is set up for an amazing and warm ending to our magical Early Christmas celebrations on December the 3rd! An unforgettable experience!

  

So, don’t sit too long at the baroque buffet table… better hurry up to take a mattress in the front row ;)!

Merry Early Christmas!

With warm wishes, 

The SEMF team.

SEMF gets presidency in REMA!

Hello friends,
 
From now on SEMF has a presidency post in a European cultural organization. Until April of 2013 I will be a chairman of REMA, the European Early Music Network. 

This is very nice for us, but also an important thing for Sweden´s cultural sector and early music life. We need to be more involved in what's happening in Europe, and Europeans might perhaps gain something from Swedish diplomacy and structured thinking... There are many areas where early music can play a stronger part, in everyday life, in the health sector, in PR - everywhere imaginable, really. It is also important in the current economic political climate to make a stand for the role of culture in society  in Europe. My hope is that my coming year will be full of positive energy for REMA and for early music.

Best regards,

Peter Pontvik, producer and artistic director of SEMF.

Let's get started!

Now it is time to say a big HELLO to the all of the blogger society, our old friends and hopefully lots of new friends!
Writing the first blog post is very thrilling, I should admit. What is even more thrilling is the fantastical meaning of such an event! We are promoting early music, music that comes to us through centuries, by using modern social media tools! How great is that?!

SEMF is the largest and brightest early music festival in Sweden with 10 years of experience and a large amount of local and international audience, world-renowned performers as our guests. Nevertheless, we are striving to reach even higher points and thinking outside of the box in order to turn early music into a lively part of today!

Here we will write about all that is going on in between the festival seasons (we are an "early summer" festival and SEMF 2012 is scheduled for 6-10th of June) and, when the time comes closer, about our amazing everyday festival routine!

From now on, everyone is WELCOME to join the world of early music with Stockholm Early Music Festival!

Med vänlig hälsningar/ With best wishes,
 
The SEMF team :).