Connecticut Early Music Festival begins

Don't be one of those who gather at dawn Friday to welcome this season's Connecticut Early Music Festival. "Early" does not refer to the time of morning.

Rather, the annual festival celebrates European repertory music written before 1800 and includes medieval, Renaissance and Baroque compositions - performed with period instruments.

Over the next three weekends, the CEMF will present six concerts in a variety of locations. The series kicks off Friday with "A Boston Classical Salon" in Connecticut College's Evans Hall.

With works by Beethoven, Mozart, Dragonetti, Taylor and Reinagle performed by members of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, the program recreates the sort of concert you'd have seen in a Boston salon in the early 19th century.

On Saturday in Old Lyme's Christ the King Church, the fest continues as Ensemble Origo plays "Nova Hispana - Music From the Cathedrals of Bogotá, Lima and Quito."

- RICK KOSTER

"A Boston Classical Salon," Members of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Evans Hall, Cummings Art Center, Connecticut College, 270 Mohegan Ave., New London; $29 reserved, $24 general admission, $12 students with ID; (860) 439-2787, ctearlymusic.org.

"Nova Hispana - Music From the Cathedrals of Bogotá, Lima and Quito," Ensemble Origo, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Christ the King Church, 1 McCurdy Road, Old Lyme; $29 reserved, $24 general admission, $12 students with ID; (860) 439-2787, ctearlymusic.org.