Freiburger Barock Orchester (DE)

About

Also known as: Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Founded in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1987, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra grew out of a group of former students from the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg who spent two years meeting on weekends to study historically informed performance practice on period instruments. Their first concert under the Freiburger Barockorchester name took place in a church in Lahr, and within a year they were playing the Berliner Philharmonie. That early momentum set the tone for a career that would take them to venues like the Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, the Wiener Musikverein, and the Philharmonie de Paris. The orchestra runs as a collective: all 29 musicians are shareholders, and artistic leadership has shifted over the years from founding member Thomas Hengelbrock to Gottfried von der Goltz, then Petra Müllejans, Kristian Bezuidenhout, and most recently Dutch violinist Cecilia Bernardini. Their repertoire stretches beyond the Baroque into classical and romantic works, and in 2009 they became the first period orchestra invited to open the Salzburger Festspiele. Guest collaborators have included Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky, Christian Gerhaher, and conductors like René Jacobs and Ton Koopman.