Amherst Early Music is the largest and most comprehensive teaching music festival for historical performance in the Western Hemisphere. Faculty and staff from around the world provide instruction and concerts for all types of early music. The Amherst Early Music Festival usually takes place during the first two weeks in August, with programs for Recorder, Viol, Voice, Harpsichord, Reeds, Brass, Lute, Harp and Historical Dance. These are high quality festivals of several disciplines of music, theatre and dance. The main objective is to enhance understanding of the issues and problems related to early music through the comparison of various schools of interpretation.
Performances can create a bridge from the present to the musical world of the past.
The Santa Cruz Baroque Festival aims to play music today, as it sounded in its own time. SIC's activities are supported by the Netherlands' government and by organisations such as the Prince Bernhard Fund and the European Cultural Foundation.