Dorothee Oberlinger

Dorothee Oberlinger ranks among Europe’s leading recorder virtuosos today and maintains an extensive discography issued by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi together with several other prominent labels. Born on September 2, 1969, in Aachen, she spent most of her childhood in the small southwestern German town of Simmern, which later conferred honorary citizenship upon her in recognition of her early prominence in the historical-performance field. She first enrolled at the University of Cologne, where she pursued studies in music education and Germanistik, and only after completing a state examination did she turn her focus to the recorder, working with Günther Höller at the Cologne University of Music and Dance while also taking lessons in Amsterdam with Walter van Hauwe and in Milan with Pedro Memelsdorff. In 1997 she captured first prize at the Moeck International Competition in London, and the next year she made her Wigmore Hall debut.

As a soloist she has appeared regularly with prominent period-instrument groups, sustaining a long association with Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca and also collaborating with Musica Antiqua Köln, the Academy of Ancient Music in London, and Ensemble 1700, the ensemble she established in 2002 and with which she has made multiple recordings. Festival appearances have figured prominently in her recital career, encompassing engagements at the Musikfestspiele Potsdam, the Tage der Alten Musik Regensburg, and the Bach Festival Arnstadt. She has served as artistic director of the Arols Baroque Festival and, beginning in 2018, of the Sanssouci Music Festival in Potsdam. In addition, she has occasionally taken the podium for Baroque opera, among other projects leading a 2016 production of Handel’s Silla at the International Handel Festival in Göttingen; the following year she was appointed a Telemann Ambassador in connection with the continent-wide observances marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death.

Although primarily identified with early music, Oberlinger has also explored contemporary and popular repertoire, contributing to the 2009 Yello track “Takla Makan” from the album Touch Yello. During the first decade of the century she recorded for Raumklang, Marc Aurel, and additional labels before signing with Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 2009, for which she issued a collection of recorder concertos by Telemann, Graupner, and Johann Christoph Schultze; she has remained affiliated with the label, releasing the album Night Music in 2019. Since 2004 she has held a professorship at the Salzburg Mozarteum.