Welcome to the Early Music Studio of Saint John!

The Studio seeks to enrich the cultural life of Saint John by engaging the community in a variety of exciting performance and educational programs relating to the music of the 16th, 17th and 18th century.

Each year the Studio presents four full concerts and three noontime summer concerts at historic venues in Uptown Saint John, and through our workshops we give musicians the opportunity to develop their knowledge of period music and performance style through the preparation of repertoire for performance.

Our Mentorship Program gives advanced-level young performers the opportunity to participate in our workshops and concerts alongside professional musicians. The Studio also awards Early Music Prizes to outstanding young performers at the New Brunswick Competitive Festival of Music each year, and showcases the prizewinners and other talented young musicians in its annual Young Musicians Concert.

Each year thousands of children in the Greater Saint John area are introduced to composers, music and instruments from the time of the first exploration and settlement of our region through the Studio’s Early Music Schools Initiative, a program which takes early music into the elementary schools.

For detailed information on all our programs, please explore our website. We look forward to sharing this wonderful music with you!

Tim Blackmore, the founder and artistic director of the Early Music Studio, received his musical training at the Conservatoire de Montréal (Premier Prix, Piano), the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Guildhall School of Music in London (AGSM Piano and Clarinet; Concert Diploma, Piano). He has had a long-time interest in early music and frequently performed as recorder soloist in Montréal with Christopher Jackson, a founder of the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal. He has made numerous solo broadcasts for CBC Radio, Radio-Canada and for the BBC and has recorded six CDs of keyboard music by such diverse composers as Byrd, Frescobaldi, Bach, Mozart and Joplin. His latest CD, a collaboration with bassoonist Robert Lewis, is Baroque Sonatas for Recorder and Bassoon (2007). He has given many performances in New Brunswick both as soloist and in collaboration with other leading musicians and organizations such as the Saint John String Quartet, Symphony New Brunswick and Opera New Brunswick. For his early music concerts he performs on an Italian harpsichord built by Andrew Graham of Saint John and on recorders by the German maker Conrad Mollenhauer.