Margret Koell & Stefan Temmingh
Biography Margret Koell & Stefan Temmingh
Stefan Temmingh
Very often, Stefan Temmingh is called the “Successor of Frans Brüggen”, a “Faun with the recorder” or a “Revolutionary on his instrument”. One thing is clear: The South African recorder player and winner of the prestigious German OPUS Klassik Award 2022 belongs to the internationally leading soloists on his instrument.
His projects and recordings show that he is an artist who is not simply following well-known paths. Stefan Temmingh is setting new standards for his instrument, he is creating a new recorder tradition. Already with his first Corelli album he succeeded in crossing the boundaries of repertoire and sound: “Never before did recorder playing sound so effortless and so differentiated in terms of timbre and dynamics.” (Corriere della Sera). In 2014 and 2015, his CDs “Inspired by Song” and “Birds” with soprano Dorothee Mields were released by SONY/dhm, both highly acclaimed by the press. It was for “Birds” that he received the German ECHO Klassik Award 2016 as Instrumentalist of the Year. In 2017 Stefan Temmingh recorded the complete recorder concerti by Antonio Vivaldi with Capricornus Consort Basel for which he was awarded an International Classical Music Award 2018, the Editor’s Choice of Gramophone Magazine and the French Diapason d’or as “the new reference for this repertoire” (Diapason). His Handel duo CD with harpsichordist Wiebke Weidanz and his third CD with Dorothee Mields “Telemann” were published in 2019 and 2020. Autumn 2021 saw the release of “Leipzig 1723”, again with Capricornus Consort Basel, for which he was awarded the OPUS Klassik Award in 2022. The recording showcases recorder concertos by Bach, Fasch, Graupner and Telemann. His latest project is titled “Sound Stories”, a duo CD with baroque harpist Margret Koell (Accent, Oct. 2024).
As a specialist for Early Music Stefan Temmingh’s repertoire comprises the complete original literature for recorder. He performs worldwide as a chamber musician and with his ensemble at various festivals and concert series, e.g. at the Leipzig Bach Festival, the Handel Festivals in Halle and in Göttingen, the Musikfest Bremen, the Bach Weeks Thuringia, at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, the Mosel Music Festival, the Bad Kissingen Summer Festival, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, the festival Styriarte Graz, the Grafenegg Festival, Oude Muziek Utrecht, the Boston Early Music Festival, the NCPA Beijing and the Shanghai Concert Hall.
As a soloist, he plays internationally with baroque, chamber and symphony orchestras such as the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken-Kaiserslautern, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the Filarmonica La Toscanini Parma, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the WDR Funkhausorchester, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra South Africa and at the Ludwigsburg Festival. Since 2017 he has been collaborating closely with the Swiss baroque orchestra Capricornus Consort Basel. Stefan’s commitment ranges from baroque to new music: Regularly, he performs (and commissions) contemporary recorder concertos. Since 2015, he has repeatedly been invited to conduct his orchestra engagements from the soloist desk.
Born in Cape Town, Stefan Temmingh comes from a Dutch-South-African family of musicians and now lives in Munich and Freiburg. Initially he studied with Markus Zahnhausen in Munich, then with Prof. Michael Schneider in Frankfurt. Since 2019 he has a professorship at the University of Music in Freiburg.
Margret Koell
is one of the internationally leading figures in the field of the historical harp. She performs worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician and continuo player with various baroque ensembles and orchestras: As a regular harpist with Il Giardino Armonico and the Accademia Bizantina, and as a guest soloist with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, B’Rock and Concerto Köln, among others. She has performed at the Salzburg Festival, Covent Garden, Theater an der Wien, the Opéra Garnier Paris, the Bavarian State Opera, La Scala Milan, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin. Since 1988, she has also been a member of the contemporary chamber music ensemble Knoedel and tours with them worldwide.
Her renowned chamber music partners include Luca Pianca, Dmitry Sinkovsky, Stefan Temmingh, Michele Pasotti, Benedikt Kristjánsson and Roberta Invernizzi. Margret Koell has taken part in numerous CD productions, radio recordings and tours, including with Cecilia Bartoli, Isabelle Faust, Sonia Prina and Roberta Invernizzi. She has released seven CDs of her own: Already her first recording “L’arpa di Partenope” with Neapolitan music from the 17th century was awarded the Diapason d’or. Her solo CD “Silent Dance” with works by Dowland and Purcell was longlisted for the German Record Critics’ Award in 2023. Her latest recording “Wondrous Machine” with her ensemble “Between the Strings”was released at the end of 2023 (Accent), featuring concerti by Handel and Scottish tunes.
One of her concert highlights was the inauguration of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, where Margret Koell performed as a duo with countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. Her most recent engagements include performances with her ensemble at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, duos in the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin with Benedikt Kristjánsson and with Stefan Temmingh, as well as recitals and tours in the UK, Spain, Germany, Colombia and Japan. In her concerts, Margret Koell regularly performs works by contemporary composers for historical harp, which she also commissions herself.
Margret Koell is the founder of Harfenlabor, an interdisciplinary platform for historical and contemporary performance practice on historical harps, which aims to stimulate critical discourse and provide impetus for new performative and interpretative approaches. With Harfenlabor, she has been organising the Harfenbiennale Innsbruck since 2021.
