Battles have been fought on the rec.music.early newsgroup about that question. Occasionally people post there about Josephine Baker or the young Louis Armstrong... But generally it is agreed that EM is somewhere much earlier, just where exactly - forty-two**. Um. Doesn't work.

This is my definition, which is entirely my own, which is to say it is mine***, but to which many will agree - and about as many disagree:

Early Music starts somewhere in the Middle Ages with Gregorian chant (i.e. the first music written down in notes), encompasses the Renaissance and Baroque and ends 1759. Or a little later.

That ending date is what most of the battles are about - it is the year Händel died. It's totally arbitrary and due to the fact that IMHO he was the last baroque composer worth mentioning whose style does not already sound classical. Some say that young Mozart, in the 1770s, was very Baroque. True. Even grown-up Mozart was Baroque in a way. Some say that Hasse and Graun, who lived a bit longer, were Baroque composers. True, at least for the former. But IMHO Händel was the Prince of Baroque music, simply the best, and after he died things just weren't the same anymore: Baroque music was dying too, becoming a stiff and dried thing or turning to the classical style. That's why.

If you want to know more and mayhap build your own definition, read the rec.music.early FAQ's "Whatis".

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