Michael Schmidt-Casdorff

Michael Schmidt-Casdorff’s musical interest and passion is going out for the historical transverse flutes and their historically informed performance practice.
He studied modern and historical flute with Konrad Hünteler.
The encounters with Frans Brüggen and Nikolaus Harnoncourt (he was invited a numerous of times by Alice and Nikolaus Harnoncourt to play in their Concentus Musicus Wien) had an intense impact on him.

Michael Schmidt-Casdorff has been a solo flautist with the Orchestra of the 18th Century (founded in 1981 by Frans Brüggen) since 2008 and with the Balthasar Neumann Orchestra (conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock) since 2007.

His musical activities are richly documented with a huge number of CD/DVD-recordings in various combinations.

From 2003-2008 Michael Schmidt-Casdorff was teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich.
He gave numerous of masterclasses for traverso (f.e. in Basel, Warsaw, Karlsruhe, Salzburg, Düsseldorf, Neuburg a.d. Donau and Havana) and teaches nowadays at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen (Germany) as well as at the Music Academy Feliks Nowowiejski in Bydgoszcz (Poland)

In addition to original instruments from his own collection, he prefers to play instruments made by Martin Wenner, Singen.