The UNT Baroque Orchestra and Early Music Ensembles are open to all members of the student body by audition. Participation is required for the MA and PhD in Musicology with an Emphasis in Early Music Performance as well as for Early Music Related Fields for the MM, DMA and PhD degrees. Participation in the UNT Baroque Orchestra can also be applied as a chamber music requirement for Master’s students and ensembles can fulfill the requirement for several Artist Certificate programs.

Private instruction is offered for baroque violin and viola; baroque cello & viola da gamba; voice; baroque oboe; baroque flute; baroque trumpet; natural horn; lute, theorbo & baroque guitar; harpsichord & basso continuo; and double bass & chamber music. Private instruction is required in the degrees listed above.

To learn more about our early music faculty, click here

The ensembles within the Early Music Studies Area offer one of the largest and most active performance activities of its type in North America. With a collection of more than 250 instruments, nearly any ensemble performing 17th- and 18th century repertoire can be assembled. Ensembles perform regularly throughout Texas and the United States and at the Boston & Berkeley Early Music Festivals.

The early music ensemble 'Fantasmi' has toured Brazil, Peru, Puerto Rico, Germany, Austria, Croatia, Vietnam, Taiwan and China during the past eight years.

Performances and masterclasses with notable early music specialists such as Christoph Hammer, Lina Tur Bonet, Phoebe Carrai, Monica Huggett, Manfredo Kraemer, Miloš Valent, David Douglass, Arthur Haas, Barbara Willi, Ellen Hargis, Bruce Dickey, Charles Toet, John Thiessen, Kiri Tollaksen, Paula Fagerberg, Julianne Baird, Hanneke van Proosdij, William Skeen, Bart van Oort and Catherine Turocy have been a regular event.

In cooperation with the UNT Collegium Singers, directed by Richard Sparks (Professor Emeritus), Vox Aquilae, directed by Allen Hightower and UNT Opera, major productions have been presented, such as Bach's St John Passion, Handel's Theodora, Rousseau’s Le Devin du Village, Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea (2003 & 2016) and the premiere of Milčinský’s Oratorium Ztracená Ovce, which has been recorded by the Czech National Radio (2023). Other performances include presentations for the American Choral Directors Association and the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music.

UNT Graduates are performing in some of the most prestigious baroque orchestras and ensembles in North America and Europe.