Join us ! BLEMF 2025 offers a weeklong series of concerts & discussions, educational workshops for kids & adults, our 2nd annual BLEMF Community Showcase & New Neighbors Children’s Art Exhibit, and more. Both live & online. Explore our program & mark your calendars!
New Neighbors Children’s Art Exhibit
A partnership with Exodus Refugee Immigration
Evenings at FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
Throughout Festival Week, enjoy artwork created by children of families who have recently joined our community, having left their troubled homelands in other parts of the world. The exhibit will encircle the mainstage space at FAR Center from Opening Night, Sunday, May 25th through Thursday night, May 29th. We are thrilled to mount the New Neighbors exhibit for the second year in a row, and we are more grateful than ever to our new young friends for sharing their artwork with us and for contributing their talents to our festival. Thank you and welcome to Bloomington!
Schedule:
2:00pm - Workshop
Walk the Walk
A Tour of Bloomington’s African American History
Start your week of celebrating African American musical achievements with a walking tour of historical sites in our own town! Black Americans have been an integral and important part of the Bloomington community since its very founding in 1818, and has since then been a site of both racial progress and discrimination; an active stop along the Underground Railroad in the mid 19th century, just over one hundred years later in 1968, it was the site of the famous Black Market firebombing in what is today People’s Park. Important moments and individuals in Black music also intertwine with Bloomington’s two hundred years of history. Join us on an informative and sometimes surprising tour of local places, people, and events, walking along the routes trod by Black residents whose invaluable contributions helped make our city the place we live in and love today.
Led by Nia I'man Smith
Tour runs 2:00pm-4:00pm
Check back for the meeting place and please contact [email protected] for mobility assisstance.
Register Here For Walk the Walk
7:00pm - Live Concert
6:15 - Pre-Concert Discussion
Tonos del Sur
José Maurício Nunes Garcia: The Sound of Brazil's Classical Legacy
(Bloomington, IN) Born in Rio de Janiero, the descendant of enslaved Black grandmothers on both sides of his family, José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830) earned lasting renown as a celebrated composer, conductor, teacher, Catholic priest, and Chapelmaster of the Rio de Janeiro Cathedral. Known today as one of the greatest exponents of Classicism in the Americas both for his own compositional output and for introducing new musical styles to his home country—including his conducting the first performance of Mozart’s Requiem—Nunes Garcia left an indelible mark on Brazil’s musical landscape. Latin American Baroque specialists Tonos del Sur, one of Bloomington’s most beloved ensembles, present a wide-ranging showcase of music by this favored composer of the colonial kingdom of Portugal, starting with Nunes Garcia’s first known composition, Tota pulchra est Maria, and centering around the stunning Mass for Our Lady of Sorrows.
Pre-Concert Discussion with Sarah Cranor, Tonos del Sur artistic director, and Paul W. Borg, BLEM board member & Latin American music specialist
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts, 505 W. 4th Street
