Friederike Heumann studied viola da gamba with Jordi Savall and Paolo Pandolfo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, completing her musical education with a solo diploma in Early Music Performance. Thereafter she received a scholarship from the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, where she lived for several years as a freelance musician. She has appeared throughout Europe, Canada, Brazil, in the US and Israel as a soloist and guest musician of numerous ensembles, including Concerto Vocale (René Jacobs), Hesperion XXI and Le Concert des Nations (Jordi Savall), Les Arts Florissants (William Christie), Lucerne Festival Orchestra (Claudio Abbado), Montréal Symphony Orchestra, Youth Orchestra of the Americas and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Kent Nagano), Bayerische Staatsoper (Ivor Bolton), Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble and others.

 

Her own ensemble, Stylus Phantasticus, has made guest appearances at many European festivals performing instrumental music of the 17th century, also in collaboration with such renowned vocal soloists as Victor Torres, Mar­a Cristina Kiehr, Andreas Scholl and Furio Zanasi. Under the artistic direction of Friederike Heumann, Zeichen im Himmel (Signs in the Heavens) with Stylus Phantasticus and Victor Torres was released in 2002, the first CD recording of trio sonatas and arias by Philipp Heinrich Erlebach. It was enthusiastically received by international reviewers and won several awards. A further CD of her ensemble with chamber music by Dietrich Buxtehude (Ciaccona: il mondo che gira) has appeared with the same label (Alpha, Paris), as well as a recording with her duo partner Hille Perl (Why not here, music for two lyra-viols) with Carpe diem.

 

Her recording of sonatas for viola da gamba by C.Ph.E. Bach (with Dirk Börner, pianoforte and Gaetano Nasillo, violoncello) has been published by Alpha in 2005. At the international competition Premio Bonporti in Rovereto Friederike Heumann was awarded the first prize with her ensemble Le Nuove Musiche.

 

Hille Perl

 

Hille Perl is widely regarded as one of the leading viola da gambists in the world. Because of the prominence of her instrument in the Baroque era, her repertory is rich in works from that period, with the names, J.S. Bach, Telemann, Marin Marais, Sainte-Colombe, and other 17th and 18th century composers headlining her concert programs and recordings. Perl also plays the treble viol, the seven-string bass viol, Baroque guitar, Lirone, and Xarana. She often performs with her husband, lutenist Lee Santana, in duo repertory, and together the pair have formed two other ensembles: Los Otros, with guitarist Steve Player, and the Age of Passions, with violinist/conductor Petra Müllejans and flutist Karl Kaiser. Perl has also appeared with some of the leading Baroque ensembles in Europe, like the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Harp Consort. She has made numerous recordings, many of them available from Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (DHM).

 

Perl steadily built her career, and soon began appearing on recordings. Among the earliest was a 1997 Deutsche Harmonia Mundi CD, Spanish Gypsies, with Santana, Player, Andrew Lawrence-King, and other notables. Perl and Santana formed Los Otros (The Others) in 2001 and their first recording, Tinto, a collection of works by Kapsberger, Corbetta, and others, appeared on RCA Special Imports in 2003. From 2002, Perl has taught viola da gamba at the University of the Arts in Bremen, while remaining busy both in the concert hall and recording studio. In 2004 Perl appeared on one of her most acclaimed recordings, Marais' Pour La Violle, with Santana, on DHM. Perl and Santana's daughter, Marthe Perl, is also an acclaimed viola da gambist. She joined her parents on a highly praised 2010 DHM CD entitled Loves Alchymie.

 

Perl's busy concert schedule includes appearances at many of the major Baroque festivals. She performed with Santana and harpsichordist Patrick Ayrton to great acclaim at the May 2011 Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, held at St. John's Smith Square in London. Their performances in an all-J.S. Bach program were later broadcast over BBC Radio 3.