Lucie Horsch

Recorder player Lucie Horsch first drew widespread attention as a prodigy, performing in both Dutch and international halls from her early teens onward. Before reaching her twenties she had already issued three recordings for Decca.

Born in Amsterdam in 1999 to two musician parents—her father serving as principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra—she chose the recorder at age five after being drawn to its tone and soon began lessons in the city. At nine she made her first solo appearance at a children’s outdoor concert on the Prinsengracht canal. Rapid progress led to her enrollment in 2011 at the Sweelinck Academy, the youth division of the Amsterdam Conservatory, where she studied both recorder and piano. National exposure came in 2013 when she appeared on the Dutch television program The Evening of the Young Musician and was selected by viewers as the country’s foremost young musician, an accolade that secured her place at the 2014 Eurovision Young Musicians competition in Cologne.

She later entered the full degree program at the Amsterdam Conservatory, adding voice lessons to her recorder and piano studies. The Concertgebouw Young Talent Award she received in 2016 resulted in a Decca contract and the release that same year of her debut album, Vivaldi, which presented the composer’s demanding flute concertos and earned the Edison Klassiek prize for best debut recording. Subsequent engagements have included appearances with the Residentie Orkest of The Hague, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. In 2019 she issued Baroque Journey, recorded with Britain’s Academy of Ancient Music and violinist-leader Bojan Čičić and featuring concertos by Giuseppe Sammartini, Bach, and Handel. The Nederlandse Muziekprijs, awarded in 2020, marked another milestone, followed in 2022 by the album Origins, which explored vernacular-inspired repertoire ranging from Bartók to Charlie Parker.