Biography

For 25 years now the L’Orfeo Barockorchester ranges among the most prominent players on the Early Music stage. According to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung the international ensemble, directed by its founder Michi Gaigg, boasts uniqueness that sets it apart from any globalized uniformity. This quality is based on widely diverse musical synergies. A spirited approach, a sense of continuity, healthy dynamics in the ensemble and an inquisitive nature are the ingredients for Michi Gaigg’s recipe. Against this background she creates her own colourful, sensual, temperamental and unmistakable handwriting.

L’Orfeo now boasts an extensive discography (counting more than 40 CD’s up to date) of some world premieres and opera productions which received international awards by BBC Music Magazine, Diapason, Gramophone, Forbes, Pizzicato (“Supersonic Award”), Le Monde de la Musique, Fono Forum, Radio Österreich 1 (“Pasticcio Prize”) as well as the German Music Award “Echo Klassik” and “Opus Klassik”.
In 2021, celebrating the 25th anniversary, the production of the complete symphonies and symphonic fragments by Schubert will be released. This is the current showpiece in L’Orfeo’s many-faceted repertoire reaching from the French, German and Austrian Baroque to the Sinfonia of the Mannheim School, First Viennese School and the early Romantics.

L’Orfeo also leaves its mark as an opera orchestra, recently with Joseph Haydn’s “Turkish” opera L’incontro improvviso and the Mozart disc “From Zero to Hero” with tenor Daniel Behle. Further rarities and master works include operas by George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georg Anton Benda, Christoph Willibald Gluck as well as a trilogy of early works by Gioachino Rossini.

The most significant festivals and venues in recent times have been Salzburg Festival, Lucerne Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, MDR Summer Festival, Handel Festival Halle, Early Music Festival Regensburg, International Baroque Festival Melk, Herbstgold Festival Eisenstadt, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg & Hohenems, EXPO 2015 Milano, Festival Bach de Lausanne, Mozart Festival Würzburg, Gluck Opera Festival Nürnberg, Cologne Early Music Festival, Palau de la Música Catalana Barcelona, Gala Concert in the Vatican City (Sixtine Chapel), Musikverein Wien, Wiener Konzerthaus, Theater an der Wien, Brucknerhaus Linz, etc., tours of France, Spain, South Africa and Namibia.
The L’Orfeo Barockorchester conducted by Michi Gaigg performed its very successful debut at the renowned Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in 2019.

Education: Euridice Barockorchester of the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz. An incentive of L’Orfeo: members of L’Orfeo coach the students during sectional rehearsals and perform with the students

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