Photo © Adriano Heitmann
born 1951 in Switzerland. Studied recorder at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Hans-Martin Linde. 1972 Winner of the 1st International Recorder Competition in Bruges (Belgium). Based in Winterthur since 1974. 1975–1982 Lecturer at the Zurich Academy of Music. 1982 Appointed lecturer at the Schola Cantorum in Basel.
1991 Awarded the Art Prize of the C.H. Ernst Foundation in Winterthur, 2016 the Zollikon/Zurich Art Prize. Concerts bring him to all European centres, to Moscow, Estonia, Georgia, Japan and regularly to the Middle East, South America and India as well as to Australia, formerly mainly with the “Ensemble 415” and London Baroque, today with the recorder ensemble “diferencias” and with “Melpomen”.
From 1976 to 2015 collaboration with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Zurich Opera and with his “Concentus Musicus” with music by Monteverdi, Mozart and Beethoven (Symphony V). Numerous recordings, most recently with DIVOX: “Echo”, “Giorno e Notte” (recorder concertos by Vivaldi) and with Musiques Suisses SWISS MADE with diferencias. Initiator and organizer of International Recorder Days (Begegnung Schweiz Osteuropa 1993; encounter with Italy 1997 “incontro” and the Arab world in Sept. 2001 with “Jadal” in Basel and Cairo).
As an Aulos player he shows a unique commitment to the music of ancient Greece. Intensive and long collaboration with the instrument maker Paul J. Reichlin, whose reconstructed instruments are the basis for his newly imagined music of the 5th and 6th centuries BC. With his ensemble “Melpomen” he has developed 4 programmes (“Melpomen”, “Olympionikais oder Pindars Oden” at the end of the Olympic Games in Athens 2004, “Sappho” and new “CHOROS” with music to Greek tragedies). The CD “Melpomen Ancient Greek Music” (Harmonia Mundi/Schola 905263) was awarded with a “diapason d’or”. The second CD “Sappho and her time” with music for the 6th century BC was released by Sony. Scholar of the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
2016 Publication of his book “Drei Flöten für Peter Bichsel”, Vom Zauber der Blockflöte, 23 music stories (Verlag Rüffer&Rub, Zurich).
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