Heidi Gröger
Born in Eichstätt (Bavaria), Heidi Gröger studied viola da gamba with Philippe Pierlot and baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, where she was awarded her Master’s degree with distinction. She later won leading prizes at international early music competitions in van Wassenaer (2004) York (2005) and the Biaggio-Marini-Wettbewerb (2003 and 2007).
Having played in Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Concerto Vocale, the Berlin Baroque Soloists and Harmonie Universelle, she founded her own chamber Ensemble Fleury which recorded Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts for Sony Classics on a ‘golden’ viola da gamba with eight strings. In collaboration with Johannes Weiss, she is artistic and executive director of the Musikfest Eichstätt (http://www.musikfest-eichstaett.de), an annual summer festival in her home town, where Phantasm makes its debut in 2018.
Since 2011 Heidi teaches viola da gamba at the Frankfurt Music Conservatoire and makes her home in Berlin, where she is especially fond of bespoke cocktails, even those concoted in smoky bars. Summers find her giving regular masterclasses in the "Vielklang" in Tübingen and directing her treasured summer courses held in the beautiful Schloss Seehaus in Franconia, southern Germany, where she invited Phantasm director Laurence Dreyfus to join her spreading the blessings of serious viol consort playing.