For the fifth time, Arts Denman/Early Music will present a Baroque Music Workshop & Festival on Denman Island.

The workshop provides an exceptional opportunity for amateur instrumentalists and singers to be tutored by renowned professional early music artists.

Together they will present orchestral and choral music from the 17th century in a historically informed baroque style, with opera staging and costumes.

Contrasto Armonico will present chamber music on May 3. The ensemble includes Marco Vitale, director, harpsichord; Marcel Beekman, tenor; Paul Luchkow, baroque violin; and Romeo Ciuffa, recorder/baroque flute.

Vitale is the founder of Contrasto Armonico, a leading early music ensemble. He has been the Baroque Music Workshop & Festival music director since its inception.

In July, he will take over as music director of the Orchester 1756 in Vienna, Austria. Vitale is renowned in European opera houses and concert venues for his character roles and interpretations of early and contemporary music. Contrasto Armonico members Luchkow and Ciuffa have dazzled our audiences in past seasons with their virtuosity and musicianship.

This year鈥榮 final concert on May 6 will feature Claudio Monteverdi鈥檚 short opera Ballo delle Ingrate, four of his Madrigals on War & Love, and two instrumental works by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer.

Il Ballo was written by Monteverdi in 1608, a year after Orfeo, the earliest widely performed opera. Ballo was commissioned as entertainment at the wedding of Francesco Gonzaga and Margaret of Savoy in Mantua. Both took part in the dancing. It tells the story of Venus and her son Cupid asking the god of the underworld, Pluto, for help because Cupid鈥檚 arrows were no longer having their intended effect.

Pluto tells them that the ingrates - or thankless souls - were not giving their partners enough love, hence they were condemned to eternity in the underworld. Pluto brings them out of the fearsome mouth of the underworld to dance and demonstrate what a wretched future can be expected if partners are not sufficiently amorous.

For more information on the Baroque Music Workshop & Festival, visit denmanbaroque.ca

Admission for Contrasto Armonico on May 3 is by donation at the door.

Advance tickets at $25 for the final concert are available through the website. Entry at the door will be adults $25, teenagers $5, and free for children under 12.