Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Baroque Orchestra)

Founded: 1982 - Berlin, Germany

The origins of the Akademie für Alte Musik (= AAMB) go back to 1982 when a number of young musicians from various Berlin orchestras founded an independent ensemble of historic instruments, thereby giving a new and decisive impulse to the hitherto rather timid efforts in this field in the former East German Republic. Since 1984 the ensemble has given an independent series of concerts in the ‘Schauspielhaus’. International renown was soon to follow. The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performed not only in the cultural centres of Eastern Germany, but was also regularly invited to important festivals: the ‘Tage Alter Musik’ in Herne and Regensburg, the Holland Festival in Utrecht, the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Festival in Duisburg, the Aachen “Bachtage” and the Händel Festival in Halle. Concert tours took the ensemble to other European countries as well as abroad. At the same time it was engaged by a number of broadcasting and recording companies.

The vitality of their interpretative approach, and the diversity of their experience arising from their collaboration with celebrated artists like René Jacobs, Reinhard Goebel, Ton Koopman, Andreas Staier, Marion Verbruggen, Catherine Mackintosh, Monica Huggett, Ivan Monighetti and the RIAS-Kammerchor under Marcus Creed, have shaped the incisive profile of the ensemble. Since 1995 the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has recorded exclusively for Harmonia Mundi France.