Early Music Institute


Michael McCraw
1201 East Third Street; IUB
(812) 855-2301
(812) 855-4936 FAX

The Early Music Institute exists along side the Early Music Department. Its role is to assist the department with its instructional functions, and to maintain and strengthen contacts both within the School of Music and externally with other music schools, early music performers, researchers, and pedagogues. Associated goals are to increase “outreach” and to bring more specialists in early music to IU to share their views. Outreach within the School of Music includes courses relevant to the non early music specialist. It is important that the general elevation of consciousness regarding musical style, a result of the “historically informed approach” to music making, be, first of all, expanded within the receptive atmosphere of the School of Music. The EMI also sends ensembles, both student and faculty, for concerts outside of the university -- a wonderful way of recruiting good potential new students and giving present students more performance opportunities.

Current and future activities of the Institute include:
1) re-activating Focus Records, with the first recording to be a sampler of early music at IU, with excerpts from live concerts ranging from medieval literature though the early classical era. Later productions will, as in the past, feature EMI faculty and students.

2) working with IU Press to revive early music publications and to develop new publications on early music topics.

3) cataloging and making new acquisitions for the Thomas Binkley Archives of Recorded Early Music. This will build on the work of the late Thomas Binkley, the inspired and strong founder of the Early Music Institute. His vision and strength in pursuing his ideas is wonderfully represented in the archives—it is urgent that the Institute care for this unique collection, the largest body of recorded early music in existence.