Elisabeth Pawelke
Almara
Almara is an ensemble for early music, founded by Elisabeth Pawelke during her studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The ensemble's musical focus is on the secular repertoire of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in which the musicians engage themselves with great intensity and which they revive with great joy of playing and virtuosity. The musicians studied at the conservatoires in Basle, The Hague, and New York and worked with renowned ensembles and orchestras for early music. In 2009 they published their first CD "Outros Amores" which theme concentrates on the various aspects of medieval love and veneration. The new album with compositions of the 15th century has been released by the label Naxos in the year 2020.
RicciCapricci
Since the foundation in the summer of 2004, the ensemble RicciCapricci enthrals the concert audiences with music of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque. The musicians met during their studies at the Karlsruhe Conservatoire from which they graduated in chamber music with honours in the summer of 2008. The ensemble received important musical impulses during study stays in Freiburg, Trossingen, Mainz, Basle, and Lyon as well as from taking master classes with Dan Lauryn, Karel van Steen oven, Han Toll und Jasper Christensen. The RicciCapricci musicians are scholarships holders of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, the Erasmus Foundation, the Kulturfond Baden, the Friends of the Karlsruhe Conservatoire, and award winners of various international competitions. By contrasting historical performance practice with avant-garde the ensemble caused a great sensation at the international competition "Blockflöte Kreativ" in September 2005 and received the first prize and the jury's special award. In August 2007, RicciCapricci were awarded the coveted audience award at the Biagio Marini Competition in Neuburg an der Donau. The highlights of the ensemble's national and international concert activities were the participations at the Stockstädt Days of Early Music, the International Messiaen Week in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, the performances in the "Fabulous Fringe" series at the festivals Oude Muziek Utrecht and the "International Van Wassenaer Festival" in Amsterdam.
Egeria
Egeria was a religious pilgrim of the 4th century and the first woman whose written travel reports were handed down to us. Elisabeth Pawelke (harp and voice) and Barbara Hintermeier (vielle) follow her footsteps and take their listeners on a travel back in time to the 12th to 15th centuries. Together with harpist Thomas Zapf their repertoire also comprises historic and traditional songs from Ireland and other British Isles as well as pieces from an early harp manuscript by Robert ap Huw.