Camerata Köln

Camerata Köln is an ensemble dedicated to the performance of baroque and classical chamber music from between 1700 and 1800, specialising in repertoire with solos for woodwind instruments such as recorder, German flute, and oboe.

The ensemble, founded in 1979, is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2009 and therefore takes up a special position as one of the longest-standing groups on the early music scene today.

The founding members, Michael Schneider (recorder and traverse flute), Karl Kaiser (traverse flute), Hans-Peter Westermann (oboe) and Rainer Zipperling (violoncello and gambe) are still active performers in the ensemble.

Over the past 30 years, Camerata Köln has not only performed at important early music festivals throughout Europe, including those in Innsbruck, Bruge, Hernem, Glasgow and Malmö, but has also frequently performed in other countries including Israel, North and South America, India, Turkey, Egypt Lebanon and Jordan, usually in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut.

The ensemble has recorded over 40 CD titles with labels such as Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and CPO. All of these recordings were produced in close cooperation with Deutschlandfunk (German radio), Cologne, and include the complete Concerti da camera by Antonio Vivaldi (the premier recording on period instruments), ‘Essercizii musici’ (4 CDs) and the ‘Getreue Musikmeister’ (5 CDs) by Georg Philipp Telemann, as well as chamber music by William Williams and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

The founding principal of the ensemble to perform early-chamber music with a virtuosic command of period instruments while also paying proper attention to historical style combined with spontaneity, pleasure and artistic independence, is still praised by critics and the public alike and is known as one of Camerata Köln’s distinguishing features.

Camerata Köln also play as a string ensemble and in this capacity the groups has performed works such as Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in the original scoring. Furthermore, the ensemble frequently work with vocal soloists such as Christoph Prégardien, Ruth Ziesak, Nuria Rial, Claron McFadden, Gotthold Schwarz, Siri Thornhill and many more.

Camerata Köln is known for developing individual programmes for festivals, anniversaries and other commemorative events. All its members are professors and teachers at German music academies (Frankfurt, Freiburg, Cologne, Darmstadt), most of who also teach in the historical interpretation department at the Academy of Music in Frankfurt am Main. The musicians regularly present joint workshops and interpretation courses, for example at the Jerusalem Music Centre (1997).