Katharina Bäuml

Katharina Bäuml stands out among wind players and ensemble directors for her bold explorations alongside her notable achievements within Germany’s thriving Renaissance music community. Munich is her birthplace. She began training on the modern oboe before turning to historical reed instruments at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland, where she completed her studies with distinction. Her principal instructors were Renate Hildebrand and Katharina Arfken, while Claudio Abbado guided her work in conducting. An early period performing with Les Musiciens du Louvre helped shape her ensemble skills. She established Capella de la Torre in 2005, an ensemble whose more than twenty recordings led to a 2013 contract with Sony Classics; the name honors both the Spanish composer Francisco de la Torre and the Renaissance custom of presenting wind and brass music from towers. In 2016 the group received Germany’s ECHO Klassik award for the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi release Water Music: Tales of Nymphs and Sirens. Its programs focus chiefly on music spanning the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries.

Bäuml has also pursued projects outside strict Renaissance boundaries. Capella de la Torre has joined forces with jazz musicians under her direction, and, together with Margit Kern in the duo Mixtura, she has solicited numerous new pieces written for period instruments. These efforts have brought her to the Ultraschall Festival in Berlin. Beyond performing, she holds teaching posts in Berlin and conducts master classes at multiple institutions. She serves as artistic director of the Music Ahuse series presented at a Romanesque cloister in Auhausen, Germany. She frequently participates in events aimed at younger musicians and appears on stage in casual attire such as jeans.