Early Music Now with Sara Schneider

Series produced by The WFMT Radio Network

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Early Music Now with Sara Schneider is a one-hour program showcasing music from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and early Baroque: from sonorous medieval chant and polyphony to delightful renaissance madrigals, dances, and consort music to magnificent baroque cantatas and keyboard music.

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This series is available free of charge to all affiliate stations for one broadcast through June 24, 2023.

Click here to listen to a 10-minute sample of Early Music Now on our Website!

For more information, please contact:

Maggie Jensen, Network Coordinator at mjensen@wfmt.com

Early Music Now with Sara Schneider is a one-hour program showcasing music from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and early Baroque: from sonorous medieval chant and polyphony to delightful renaissance madrigals, dances, and consort music to magnificent baroque cantatas and keyboard music.

Host and producer Sara Schneider brings knowledge, charm, and passion to her presentation of seven hundred years of music history. From the latest recordings by today’s vibrant young ensembles, to classics from the dawn of the early music revival, Early Music Now makes this repertoire accessible and enjoyable to a wide audience.

About the Host, Sara Schneider

After studying musicology at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Michigan native Sara Schneider put her love of music to work at Classical 89.5, KMFA in Austin, Texas; first as an announcer and producer, and subsequently as Music Director until 2014. From 2014 to 2016, Sara lived in Lübeck, Germany, where she researched and authored a novel, The Eagle and the Songbird.

Sara has interviewed numerous early music luminaries, including Ton Koopman, Anonymous 4, Jordi Savall, and the late Gustav Leonhardt. She is a two-time Gracie Award® winner: in 2011 she received the award for her program Michael Nyman: Motion and Emotion, and in 2018 for Her Name Shall Endure, a program about medieval woman of letters Christine de Pizan.

Sara serves on the board of Texas Early Music Project. In her spare time, she enjoys travel, hiking, and writing historical fiction, and she recently completed a teacher training program in Kundalini Yoga. Hide full description

Please login to PRX.org to preview program audio.


This series is available free of charge to all affiliate stations for one broadcast through June 24, 2023.

Click here to listen to a 10-minute sample of Early Music Now on our Website!

For more information, please contact:

Maggie Jensen, Network Coordinator at mjensen@wfmt.com

Early Music Now with Sara Schneider is a one-hour program showcasing music from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and early Baroque: from sonorous medieval chant and polyphony to delightful renaissance madrigals, dances, and consort music to magnificent baroque cantatas and keyboard music.

Host and producer Sara Schneider brings knowledge, charm, and passion to her presentation of seven hundred years of music history. From the latest recordings by today’s vibrant...

Show full description

53 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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This program focuses on music from Restoration England, including choral, chamber, and keyboard works by two of the most famous composers of the pe...

  • Added: Sep 04, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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This week's show presents music from the Dutch Golden Age as it may have been heard by artists like Rembrandt van Rijn and Judith Leyster, includin...

  • Added: Aug 27, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Peter Philips recently released a new recording with his ensemble El León de Oro which focuses on Flemish composers working in Madrid at the end of...

  • Added: Aug 20, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Bruges was a wealthy, artistically vibrant metropolis in the late Middle Ages, and the church of St. Donatian was an important musical hub there. T...

  • Added: Aug 15, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Jean Japart was born in France and made a name for himself in the 1470s as a singer and composer in Milan and Ferrara. We'll hear secular songs by ...

  • Added: Aug 06, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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George Frideric Handel resided in Rome from 1707-1710, right before moving to England where he would live for the rest of his life. While in Rome h...

  • Added: Jul 30, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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The Polish city of Cracow rose to prominence in the 14th and 15th centuries under the leadership of the Jagiellonian dynasty and became the politic...

  • Added: Jul 23, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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This week we're hearing from composers who experimented with a combination of national styles, such as Georg Muffat, Michele Mascitti, and François...

  • Added: Jul 17, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Emilio de' Cavalieri (1550-1602) was a groundbreaking composer whose influence was pivotal for the development of opera. We'll hear his innovative ...

  • Added: Jul 09, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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This week's show presents a recent release from Ensemble Peregrina called Vox dilecti mei, with some of the earliest settings of texts from the Son...

  • Added: Jul 02, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Our destination this week is Mechelen, Belgium, and the court of Margaret of Austria, governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. Her court was a magnet ...

  • Added: Jun 25, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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The great Italian poet, scholar, and humanist Francesco Petrarch passed away 650 years ago. His poems were enormously popular with composers even c...

  • Added: Jun 18, 2024
  • Length: 58:29
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Heinrich Schütz and Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger were contemporaries that were both of German parentage, but the similarity ends there! Schütz stud...

  • Added: Jun 11, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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This week, host Sara Schneider explores two recent releases: music by Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599) performed by The Brabant Ense...

  • Added: Jun 04, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Today's show presents a mix of music from medieval France, including 12th-century chant and polyphony performed by Lionheart, love songs featuring ...

  • Added: May 29, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Jean-Philippe Rameau's opera-ballet Les Fêtes de Polymnie was composed to celebrate a French military victory in 1745. We'll hear Tempesta di Mare ...

  • Added: May 22, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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This week's show presents music which was written for or performed at various kinds of ceremonies: weddings, funerals, christenings, and coronation...

  • Added: May 14, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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This week's Baroque extravaganza includes some recent releases: Plucked Bach II with mandolinist Alon Sariel, Vivaldi played by violinist Théotime ...

  • Added: May 08, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Today's show presents Monteverdi as you may never have heard him before, with selections from Missa in illo tempore which he wrote for the Gonzaga ...

  • Added: Apr 30, 2024
  • Length: 58:30