Katharina Bäuml

Wind player and ensemble leader Katharina Bäuml has been at once one of the most adventurous and one of the most successful musicians in Germany's vigorous Renaissance music scene. Bäuml was born in Munich. Beginning her studies as a player of the modern oboe, she switched to historical reed instruments at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland, graduating with honors. Her teachers were Renate Hildebrand and Katharina Arfken, and she has studied conducting with Claudio Abbado. She cut her teeth as an ensemble musician during a stint with Les Musiciens du Louvre. In 2005 she founded Capella de la Torre, which has since gone on to become a major success with more than 20 albums to its credit; in 2013 the group was signed to Sony Classics. (The group's name refers both to the Spanish composer Francisco de la Torre and to the Renaissance practice of playing wind and brass music from towers.) Bäuml and Capella de la Torre won Germany's prestigious ECHO Klassik award in 2016 for their Deutsche Harmonia Mundi album Water Music: Tales of Nymphs and Sirens. The repertoire of Capella de la Torre is generally drawn from music of the 14th through the 17th centuries. Bäuml has ventured beyond core Renaissance repertory in various directions. She has begun projects that have seen Capella de la Torre collaborate with jazz musicians, and, as one half (with Margit Kern) of the duo Mixtura, she has commissioned numerous contemporary compositions to be played on historical instruments. In the latter capacity she has appeared at the Ultraschall Festival in Berlin. In addition to her performance activities, Bäuml teaches in Berlin and gives master classes at various institutions. She is the artistic director of the Music Ahuse series at a Romanesque cloiser in Auhausen, Germany. Bäuml makes regular appearances at events for young musicians, and in her concerts she dresses informally, in jeans. ~ James Manheim