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Message from the Artistic Director

Welcome to the Early Music Studio of Saint John!

The Early Music Studio of Saint John seeks to enrich the cultural life of Saint John and New Brunswick by engaging the community in a variety of performance and educational programs relating to the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Each May the Studio presents the Saint John Early Music Festival which provides a showcase for performers of early music from New Brunswick and elsewhere. The Festival’s educational and outreach programs include concerts and workshops scheduled throughout the rest of the year which give New Brunswick musicians the opportunity to develop their knowledge of 17th and 18th century music and performance practice through the preparation and performance of baroque and classical repertoire.

The Festival awards Early Music Prizes to outstanding local young performers at the New Brunswick Competitive Festival of Music and showcases the prizewinners and other talented young musicians in its annual Young Musicians Concert. The Early Music Schools Initiative visits a number of schools in the Greater Saint John area each year, introducing children to composers, music and instruments from the 17th and 18th centuries.  For detailed information on all our programs, please explore our website. We look forward to sharing this wonderful music with you!


Tim Blackmore

A graduate of the Montreal Conservatoire, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Guildhall School of Music in London, harpsichordist and recorder player Tim Blackmore has received accolades in Canada and abroad as a musician “of undaunted enterprise, formidable technical powers and lyrical expressiveness” (London Daily Telegraph).  He is the Founder and Artistic Director of both the Early Music Studio of Saint John and the Saint John Early Music Festival and is a member (with lutenist Michel Cardin) of the La Tour Baroque Duo, whose recordings of baroque repertoire have garnered international critical acclaim. He has performed as a solo and chamber player throughout New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and in major centres such as Toronto, Montreal, New York, Paris and London. In 2013 he was Musician-in-Residence at the Fortress of Louisbourg as part of the special events celebrating the fortress’s 300th anniversary. In 2014 he received the Originals Arts Award for his contributions to the cultural life of Saint John. He performs on an Italian-Flemish  harpsichord made by Andrew Graham and on copies of recorders by the celebrated 18th-century makers Peter Bressan and Englebert Terton.