Classical: The Relic Ensemble Will Play Peruvian Period Music

Relic Ensemble. Photo from Early Music Now. Early Music Now’s concert season includes many of the world’s preeminent early music artists and ensembles. The season opens Saturday with a new group, the Relic Ensemble, which has made an impact in its first three years. Critics have praised the ensemble for its “clarity and transparency” and “fleet, precise, and often virtuosic playing,” calling it an “airtight ensemble” and an “exceptional, sonically rich continuo group.” University education in the United States over the past half-century has introduced “historical performance” into its curriculum, preparing fresh sets of performers steeped in the details of 15th- to 17th-century period instruments and music. More recently, a well-endowed program created by Juilliard in 2009 was home to six artists who decided after graduation to establish the core group of the Relic Ensemble. The Relic Ensemble s program for this concert takes as a starting point music likely to be heard in 17th- and 18