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**EARLY MUSIC ALBERTA FESTIVAL 2026****November 6–8**
Three days of concerts, workshops, historical dance and community music-making!
This year, Early Music Alberta welcomes Montreal’s **Ensemble Caprice** for a weekend of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, bringing together musicians from Ensemble Caprice and our own Alberta early music community.
The festival opens Friday evening with **Music from Heaven: Celebrating Strong Women from the 17th Century and Today**, featuring eight women’s voices in the extraordinary music of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, conducted by Matthias Maute.
On Saturday evening, **Transcending the Alps** travels between Italy and northern Europe, with cornetto, cornettino, sackbut, strings and continuo. At the centre of the program are all four of Matthias Weckmann’s remarkable *Sonatas à 4*, works so rarely heard that these may well be their first performances in Canada. If you have never heard a cornettino, you are not alone.
Sunday afternoon, **The Nightingale and Angels** closes the festival with Matthias Maute, Josephine van Lier and Christopher Bagan in music by Bach, Vivaldi, Corelli, Telemann, Van Eyck and others.
And the festival is not just about listening. **Saturday is full of community events, with three of them completely FREE:**
**9:30 AM – Renaissance Instrumental Reading Workshop – FREE**
A relaxed, no-pressure morning of playing Renaissance music for community musicians.
**9:30 AM – Renaissance Singing Workshop – FREE**
A drop-in session for community singers, led by Jolaine Kerley, with Renaissance music and practical help with sight-singing.
**12:00 PM – Historical Dance Workshop with Live Music – FREE**
Learn historical dances with Cath Jackel, then dance them to live music performed by the Borealis Renaissance Consort. Beginners are welcome, and you do not need to bring a partner.
**3:00 PM – Community Concert**
An afternoon concert featuring local early music ensembles.
Free pre-concert talks take place before all three festival concerts.
Come for a concert, spend Saturday making music and dancing with us, or join us for the whole weekend.
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Event venue
First Presbyterian Church, Edmonton, Canada
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.