Scaramella features Canada's finest early music specialists (and esteemed guests from abroad), showcased in energetic and accessible chamber music programs. Scaramella combines the unique and subtle timbres inherent to period instruments with the excitement and anticipation of performing new, or little-known works. Each program reveals some unexpected elements through choice of repertoire, by juxtaposing music with art and literature, or simply via the manner in which the presentation is staged.

Over the course of its first six seasons, Scaramella has presented 18 programmes.
Some highlights include:

• a program focusing on puzzles and games that were used as structures for musical compositions. A master of ceremonies ‘shuffled’ the pieces for an impromptu determination of the programme order.
• the Canadian premier of a recently published piano quintet by Ralph Vaughan Williams, paired with works for period instruments by Canadian composers Ronald Royer and Derek Healey.
• traditional 17th and 18th century viol consort music (J.S. Bach, Louis Couperin, William Lawes, Anthony Holborne, etc), presented in conjunction with a collaboration with Toronto’s Open Studio, a display of modern prints (lithographs, woodcuts, screenprints, etc) by professional Canadian graphic artists.
• voices, recorders, gamba, lute, banjo, pennywhistle, double bass, etc, contrasting traditional 17th century English early music (Henry Purcell, Orlando Gibbons, John Playford, Robert Johnson, Nicola Matteis, etc) with different types of folk music, reflecting bluegrass, traditional Irish, Appalachian and shape note singing traditions.
• a celebration of music and poetry, pairing music of Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt with that of Italian early-Renaissance masters Josquin des Prez, Loyset Compère, Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Marchetto Cara.