CAMERATA NEWS
Free America! Heads North
Free America! Songs of Resistance and Rebellion is officially on tour this summer, opening the Camerata’s 2026/2027 season in Alna, ME.
Photo: Alna Meetinghouse © Anne Azéma
April 2026
A Return to Tanglewood
On 16 July 2026, under the direction of Anne Azéma, The Boston Camerata returns to the Tanglewood Music Festival and perform Free America: Early Songs of Resistance and Rebellion (1790–1860) at Seiji Ozawa Hall.
February 2026
After a long hiatus, enriched by other musical discoveries, The Boston Camerata is eager to return to the captivating repertoire of arguably the most famous English-musician of his day: John Dowland. This year especially, as 2026 marks the 400th anniversary of his death. Looking to the past in order to better understand the present, in the opening performance of its 71st season, The Boston Camerata continues to explore age-old themes of justice and corruption with satirical works from the Middle Ages. Commissioned by the Reims Festival for the 800th anniversary of their Cathedral, The Boston Camerata’s A Gallery of Kings program, presented by the Boston Early Music Festival, has its U.S. premiere this June. The Boston Camerata, returning from a European tour, continues its work on early American music. The classic and much admired collaboration between the Tero Saarinen Company (TSC) and The Boston Camerata (TBC) now returns to the stage 20 years after its premiere. Leading the second half of our 70th anniversary season programming, Anne Azéma’s powerful staging of Daniel reverberates once again at Trinity Church Copley Square on January 19, 2025 at 2pm. This contemporary production involves lights, movement, urgent poetry, and a sterling cast of seasoned professionals, children, and students of the Longy School of Music of Bard College. The holiday season is fast-approaching, and The Boston Camerata is delighted to offer two celebratory programs: A Medieval Christmas: Hodie Christus Natus Est tours Maine and Massachusetts December 5-8, and A German Christmas: In Dulci Jubilo comes to Cambridge, MA on December 22. With an unusually long and distinguished career, immersed at every moment in [early] music and the riches of musical history, the Boston Camerata rejoices in seven decades of historically-informed performance, research, community outreach, and musical education. Something extraordinary is about to happen: The Boston Camerata, America’s leading early music ensemble, is about to celebrate a milestone anniversary. This week the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) awarded $51 million of Cultural Sector Pandemic Recovery Grants to organizations and individuals. The Boston Camerata is proud to be among the recipients! We are grateful to MCC and everyone who advocates for arts funding at the state and national level. Many moods, both somber and joyful, will be expressed in the Boston Camerata’s upcoming concert season, featuring four productions of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque early music. The Thomas Binkley Award honors individuals who, in their roles as leaders of collegiate early-music ensembles, have made outstanding contributions to the study and performance of early music. Douce Dame Jolie: Guillaume de Machau’ts Last Affair, Camerata’s version of Machaut’s verse novel Le Voir Dit — The True Story, was first created for the Reims Festival in 2011, and will soon receive its US premiere. The program provides a nuanced and intimate perspective on timeless human circumstances and emotions. Anne Azéma, Artistic Director of The Boston Camerata, has been promoted to the ran of Officier (Officer) of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government. The Boston Camerata, under Anne Azéma’s director, continues its pioneering musical explorations in 2021-22 with a three-concert series, ranging from the early Middle Ages to the American spiritual tradition of the nineteenth century. 
Dowland at 400
January 2026
Biting Musical Commentary
August 2025
A Gallery of Kings: uses and Abuses of power ca. 1300
May 2025
Trav’ling home: american spirituals 1770-1870
April 2025
Borrowed Light Returns
February 2025
A Medieval Masterpiece revisited
January 2025
Camerata returns with vivid Musical Celebrations
November 2024
Lands of Pure Delight: Seven Decades of Music Making with the Boston Camerata
October 2024
Pure delight! camerata announces its 2024-25 concert season, celebrating seven decades
July 2024
Camerata Receives Cultural Sector Pandemic Recovery Grant
February 17, 2023
Camerata celebrates light and shadow in 68th season
Anne Azéma honored by Early music america with 2022 Thomas binkley award
July 12, 2022
Camerata presents a love affair from medieval france
Updated February 2022
French Government honors anne Azéma
December 22, 2021
We’ll be there! Boston Camerata announces 2021-22 concert season
RECENT PRESS
Boston Camerata Brings ‘Free America!’ To Alna July 12
Free America! opens The Boston Camerata’s 72nd on Sunday, July 12, at 2pm at Alna’s historic meetinghouse.
“The group will sing early American songs, hymns, and marches from the years 1790-1860, performed inside a timber-frame meetinghouse built when much of the music was new.”
9 July 2026
Boston Camerata July 12 at 1789 Alna Meetinghouse
This Sunday, July 12, at 2pm, The Boston Camerata presents Free America! Early Songs of Resistance and Rebellion at the Alna Meetinghouse.
“Built in the same year that George Washington was first inaugurated as president, Alna’s 1789 Meetinghouse is one of the few physical connections in Lincoln County to the founding era — and a particularly fitting venue for songs from the decades that immediately followed”, said Ed Pentaleri, one of Historic Alna’s directors.
7 July 2026
Historic Alna’s events continue
Partnering with Historic Alna, The Boston Camerata will present Free America! Early Songs of Resistance and Rebellion at the Alna Meetinghouse on Sunday, July 12 at 2pm.
“The program — songs, hymns, and marches from the early American republic — will be performed inside a building that was constructed when this music was new.”
26 June 2026
Music Before 1800 Unveils 2026-27 Season
Following its two performances in Cambridge (MA), The Boston Camerata will present Cantigas: Songs of Mystic Spain on 14 March 2027 in New York (NY).
Read more about the program here.
8 June 2026
Medieval Combat Game Takes Boston Camerata Down Video Pathways
“Picture Anne Azéma leading her esteemed cohort from the Boston Camerata and performing 13th-century music of courtly love and legend. Now picture Azéma with the same cohort, performing the same music but for a strategic, turn-based combat computer role-playing game recently released on Steam and already explored avidly by gamers and reviewers on Discord.”
– Keith Powers, Classical Voice North America
8 April 2026
2026 Artifice Studio announced the release date for their Legends of the Round Table RPG! The game features music recorded by musicians of The Boston Camerata. “An authentic soundtrack featuring live lute and harp performances enhances the atmosphere. This includes haunting vocals by Anne Azéma of The Boston Camerata.” The Boston Camerata will revisit the captivating repertoire of arguably one of the most important English musicians before Purcell: John Dowland (1563–1626). At the ensemble’s February 15th “Farewell, Unkind: Songs and Dances of John Dowland” concert at Longy’s Pickman Hall, internationally admired British lutenist Nigel North will guide and sustain five voices’ travels through the marvelous Dowland cosmos. Artistic Director Anne Azéma leads a program of Dowland’s lute songs and dances, joined by British lutenist Nigel North [pictured left] and five vocalists including Corey Dalton Hart, Andrew Padgett, Camila Parias, and Deborah Rentz-Moore. – David Salazar “Additional guests at Ozawa Hall this summer include some familiar faces for Bostonians, including the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, The Boston Camerata and A Far Cry with pianist Simone Dinnerstein; and Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens.” – A.Z. Madonna Early music ensemble The Boston Camerata returns to Tanglewood to present Free America! Early Songs of Resistance and Rebellion. Led by the Camerata’s artistic director Anne Azéma, the program explores the vital and life-affirming sounds of the young Republic, as its citizens stood and played forth their love of freedom and their rejection of tyranny. (Thurs., July 16, 8 p.m.) Read the full press release here. “It’s a pretty eclectic, but I must say thrilling lineup of programs and artists that we’ve managed to include in the season…Our own Boston Camerata, which will be doing early American Revolutionary music.” – Tony Fogg, Vice President for Artistic Planning at the Boston Symphony, in an interview with Brian McCreath (CRB) “Boston Camerata’s ‘Free America! Early Songs of Resistance and Rebellion’…should appeal to early music votaries.” – Mark DeVoto The Boston Camerata and Anne Azéma lead Free America! Early Songs of Resistance and Rebellion. What could be more touching and delightful than an evening of Dowland presented by The Boston Camerata, under the direction of Anne Azéma, now in its 72nd year. – Lloyd Schwartz In the Nonesuch holiday playlist of “tunes both classic and soon-to-be”, Camerata is featured with tracks from A Medieval Christmas (1975), Sing We Noel: Christmas Music from England & Early America (1978), A Renaissance Christmas (1985), and A Baroque Christmas (1991). The Midnight Cry: An American Christmas was selected by The Boston Globe for “Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond”. “The U.S. premiere of Boston Camerata’s ‘Gallery of Kings’ this past June was an evening made up of stories of regal deeds and misdeeds through songs and texts.” – Aaron Keebaugh As the Camerata prepares for its second program of the Christmas 2025 season, The Midnight Cry: An American Christmas (Dec. 21, 2025, 4:00pm at First Church in Cambridge), BMInt engaged with Director Emeritus, Joel Cohen and Artistic Director, Anne Azéma to collect reminiscences and reflections on Camerata’s 50-year history of holiday programming. “Boston Camerata has crafted a cornucopia of holiday programs in its 70-plus years of existence, and it usually performs two of them every December. This year’s offerings both originate from emeritus music director Joel Cohen’s long tenure, but current director Anne Azéma has revised and augmented them.” – A.Z. Madonna, The Boston Globe “Boston Camerata returns to Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 4 to present ‘Sing We Noel: Christmas Music from England and Early America.'” – The Lincoln County News “Drawing on perennial repertoire for the Camerata, music director Anne Azéma crafted an experience that brought tears to our eyes, sometimes from laughter and in others from a despairing sense of the profound sameness of injustice across history…’City of Fools’ proved that early music still has relevance for the modern listener beyond simply a historical curiosity. It can tell us something about our own society today.” – Michael Goetjen, Boston Music Intelligencer An interview with Artistic Director Anne Azéma about Camerata’s upcoming City of Fools program (25 October 2025). “Borrowed Light” is breathtaking and timeless in its clarity, seriousness, and beauty. “Die Tero Saarinen Company und The Boston Camerata erinnern in Borrowed Light an die Shaker.” Through story, song, missives, and popular gibes at authority, the Boston Camerata program looked at kings remembered for their great deeds and those commemorated for their bumbling idiocy. – Aaron Keebaugh A Gallery of Kings: Uses and Abuses of Power ca. 1300 was cited under “Rarer Sights & Sounds”. “A Gallery of Kings: Uses and Abuses of Power is a program meant to assure audiences that questions of the present have confronted people in the past” “Come for the illuminated manuscript art style, stay for the in-depth turn-based combat.” From Artifice Studio, Legends of the Round Table is an RPG (role-playing game) inspired by authentic Medieval tales, transporting players into the historical and magical world of King Arthur. Play for the rich narratives, 13th-century inspired hand-drawn art, and to hear Camerata musicians perform throughout your adventures! Demo for LotRT is now LIVE on Steam. Trav’ling Home cited by The Boston Globe in “Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond”. Trav’ling Home cited by New England Public Media in “Culture to Do”. The Boston Camerata presents two programs in Spring 2025: Trav’ling Home (April 26 & 27) and A Gallery of Kings: Uses and Abuses of Power ca. 1300 (June 10). This reprise of Borrowed Light, “a classic, even a mythical work” (Dancer Canal Historique, March 2025), born from a collaboration between The Boston Camerata and Tero Saarinen Company, has been met in Finland and France by sold out halls and enthusiastic standing ovations. Dans la discographie de la Boston Camerata: « La Boston Camerata fête ses 70 ans cette année. À l’occasion de la venue de la directrice musicale, Anne Azéma, dans la matinale de Jean-Baptiste Urbain, on plonge dans sa discographie. » Anne Azéma: « Les artistes ont quelque chose à dire sur la situation aux États-Unis » La Matinale avec la cheffe Anne Azéma, une voix de l’Amérique « Dans la pénombre, des voix s’élèvent tandis que les silhouettes des danseurs se mettent en mouvement. Doucement, souplement, comme s’ils s’éveillaient au monde… » « Leur spectacle Borrowed Light, sur les shakers (puritains de Nouvelle-Angleterre), créé avec le chorégraphe Tero Saarinen, au Havre, en 2004, et repris mercredi au festival Automne en Normandie, fut nommé l’an passé meilleur spectacle de la décennie par la critique américaine, au terme d’une tournée de quarante dates ! » “Anne Azéma and Boston Camerata brought us a fresh, riveting, ravishing and absolutely contemporary version of Daniel’s gift.” Daniel: A Medieval Masterpiece Revisited cited by The Boston Globe in “Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond” Boston Music Intelligencer: The fiery prophecies of Daniel, young captive in corrupt Babylon, will ring forth again. Anne Azéma’s new production of the greatest musical play from the French Middle Ages involves deeply evocative lighting, movement, urgent poetry, and a sterling cast. Seasoned professionals will partner with children and Longy School of Music of Bard College students to make 1310 happen again at Trinity Church, Copley Square on January 19th at 2:00. A German Christmas: In Dulci Jubilo selected by The Boston Globe for your festive celebration this Sunday [December 22]. “Boston Camerata proved that medieval music can resonate as much as holiday music of today in a well-attended performance on Friday [December 6] night in Belmont.” “Music conveys the flow of history, Cohen says. Boston Camerata concerts show ‘that something old can still make you vibrate, that something comes alive across the centuries.'” The Tero Saarinen Company and The Boston Camerata will present Borrowed Light July 23 & 24 for the Bregenz Festival’s 2025 season. “In 1954, with playable instruments in hand, a collective of Boston musicians started experimenting with early repertoires from a remote musical world…” Anne Davenport interviews Artistic Director, Anne Azéma, in advance of the 70th anniversary season’s opening performance on October 6. “As key players in the development of the U.S. early-music field, much of their history is our history.” “Anne Azéma’s internationally acclaimed and always compelling early-music group kicks off its season with one of its rousing specialties, We’ll Be There! American Spirituals, Black and White, 1800-1900” ~ Lloyd Schwartz “But Boston Camerata’s smart and economical take on the composer’s only fully sung drama, heard at Pickman Hall Saturday night, provided a glimpse into the very nature of Baroque spectacle.” “The very sounds of our mysterious human evolution served as so many expressive registers in Azéma’s hands.” “A magic world of live, beautifully performed music…” “Under Anne Azéma’s veteran leadership, Camerata offers a candlelit performance of Charpentier’s “Messe de Minuit” alongside Christmas music from the Burgundian court and more.” “[This concert] was beautiful and vibrant … revealing … This is something one almost never hears examined in the context of classical music, and it was moving and exciting to witness it come alive.” “The Camerata produces a joyous, tightly defined sound in these chants, songs, and processionals, many familiar from its indelible live performances.” “Hodie Christus Natus Est is a rich program that displays historically informed performance at its very finest.” “The singing is crisp, pure, yet with plenty of emotional heft… The accompaniments – on medieval fiddle, harp, bells and ancient winds – are lively and evocative.” “I have had the pleasure of being joined by the Camerata’s long-time performer and now director, Anne Azéma… Her wit, intelligence, and devotion to the craft shine through in every performance and conversation.”24 February 2026
Faithfully medieval turn-based RPG Legends of the Round Table launches on March 31 2026
February 2026
Legends of the Round Table is Launching on 31 March on Steam
9 February 2026
Boston Camerata to Present ‘Farewell, Unkind: Songs and Dances of John Dowland’
3 February 2026
Boston Camerata to Present ‘Farewell, Unkind: Songs and Dances of John Dowland’
30 January 2026
Boston Symphony Orchestra announces 2026 Tanglewood lineup
29 January 2026
Boston Symphony Orchestra Announces 2026 Tanglewood Season
29 January 2026
“A Nexus of Landscape and Musical Art”: Tanglewood 2026
29 January 2026
Tanglewood 2026 Announced
29 January 2026
Tanglewood’s 2026 Season
13 January 2026
An extensive guide to Greater Boston’s winter classical music concerts
18 December 2025
Listen: Nonesuch for the Holidays Playlist
17 December 2025
Selected by The Boston Globe for Christmas 2025
14 December 2025
The Arts Fuse’s “Top Classical Recordings and Concerts of 2025”
12 December 2025
Christmas with the Boston Camerata: Reflections from the Creators
4 December 2025
Three vocal concerts not to miss this holiday season
4 December 2025
Lincoln Theater Welcomes Boston Camerata
27 October 2025
Camerata On The More Things Change…
18 October 2025
Medieval Songs of Rule and Misrule
July 2025
Masterpiece of sound, movement, and light: Tero Saarinen’s dance about being human
22 July 2025
Diese Einfachheit ist ein Geschenk / This Simplicity is a Gift
17 June 2025
Concert Review: “Gallery of Kings”
6 June 2025
A quick guide to this year’s Boston Early Music Festival
16 May 2025
With medieval music, the Boston Camerata addresses a very current concern
14 May 2025
Legends of the Round Table is Pentiment if it had Arthurian turn-based combat and there’s a gorgeous demo out now
13 May 2025
Legends of the Round Table unveils official trailer
23 April 2025
“Things to do around boston…” (Boston Globe)
23 April 2025
Culture to Do (New england public Media)
10 March 2025
A guide to Greater Boston’s bounty of spring classical music events
8 March 2025
Tero Saarinen and the Boston Camerata: “Borrowed Light”
6 March 2025
Radio France
25 February 2025
La Boston Camerata, les 70 ans d’un ensemble défricheur
Borrowed Light, Le figaro 2011 (Reposted February 2025)
La Française qui fait chanter l’Amérique
20 January 2025
Daniel’s Gift
15 January 2025
“Things to do around boston…” (Boston Globe)
11 January 2025
Daniel: A Medieval Masterpiece Revisited
18 December 2024
The Boston Globe’s “Big To-Do”
December 2024
Boston Camerata’s medieval Christmas resonates gracefully with the present
November-December 2024
The Boston Camerata Turns 70
November 2024
Bregenz Festival’s 2025 Season
September 2024
Boston Camerata’s first 70 years
September 2024
Camerata Commemorates
September 2024
Checking in with ensembles old and brand new
September 2024
12 March 2024
December 21, 2023
September 8, 2023
September 8, 2023
featured in wbur’s fall arts guide
May 11, 2023
March 20, 2023
Artsfuse: Dido & Aeneas “included…Plenty of Contemporary Razzmatazz”
March 19, 2023
Enigmatic and Poignant Dido & Aeneas – Boston Musical Intelligencer
December 23, 2022
Carols at midnight is “Simply superb” – Boston Musical Intelligencer
November 11, 2022
Carols at Midnight chosen for boston globe holiday concert preview
November 3, 2022
October 3, 2022
We’ll be there! was “wonderful” – new york Classical REview
January 1, 2022
December 22, 2021
res musica (paris) reviews hodie
“Sensitive and enthusiastic…free from any trace of academicism…spiritual serenity. The [Camerata] ensemble is full of grace, extraordinarily eloquent.”
December 17, 2021
Der spiegel reviews hodie christus natus est
“The [Camerata] ensemble takes you to a place of hope, redemption, and everlasting peace…Simply beautiful, and not just for Christmas.”
December 17, 2021
Boston globe: hodie included in classical notes’ “9 notable recordings” of the year
View as PDFDecember 15, 2021
Sequenza21’s Best of 2021 in Holiday music
December 15, 2021
#3 in the twelve days of christmas music – Limelight magazine, australia
December 14, 2021
December 11, 2021
December 8, 2021
November 29, 2021
millenium of music special with anne azéma and Robert aubrey davis
October 31, 2021
October 25, 2021
October 5, 2021
