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

46 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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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
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The Burgundians knew how to party, and the Feast of the Pheasant has gone down in history as one of the most extravagant social occasions of the 15...

  • Added: Apr 24, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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This week we're listening to a medieval musical drama for the Easter season: the Play of the Pilgrims to Emmaus. Ensemble Organum performs this 12t...

  • Added: Apr 16, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt was first performed in London in April of 1739. We'll hear selections from a recent release from Apollo's Fire, d...

  • Added: Apr 10, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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Today's show is full of celestial music to celebrate the total eclipse visible in parts of the US! Various heavenly bodies are mentioned in texts s...

  • Added: Apr 02, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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An eclectic Easter celebration awaits you this week, including Bach's cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden, William Byrd's Mass Propers for Easter, pl...

  • Added: Mar 26, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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In commemoration of Holy Week, we're listening to an unusual setting of the Passion story by Adrian Willaert. With its innovative polyphony and hom...

  • Added: Mar 20, 2024
  • Length: 58:30
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A heartfelt setting of Stabat Mater by Bohemian composer František Tůma lay forgotten in a monastery library in Germany until it was rediscovered b...

  • Added: Mar 12, 2024
  • Length: 58:30