Maurice Steger | Biography
Recorder player & conductor

He has been celebrated as the "the Paganini of the recorder" by music critics and been succinctly described as "the world’s leading recorder virtuoso" (the Independent) – today Maurice Steger is one of the most fascinating recorder players, ­conductors and musical professors working in the sphere of Early music. In these different capacities, he thrills ­audiences around the world with a variety of concert formats.

Maurice Steger is an incredibly charismatic ­musician: spontaneous, captivating and full of energy. With his vibrant manner, intense and full instrumental sound and amazing technique, this "recorder wizard" has managed to bring to prominence the recorder as an instrument in all its fascinating forms. The 2015 ECHO Classic Award which he received as "­Instrumentalist of the Year" is testimony to his ­success.

In his concerts, Maurice Steger takes listeners on a spellbinding musical journey, with every piece of music offering something to discover. As a soloist, conductor or both at once, he regularly performs with the top period instrument ensembles, such as the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the ­Venice Baroque Orchestra, the English Concert, La Cetra, the Lautten Compagney and I ­Barocchisti. He also performs with leading modern orchestras such as the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Berlin Baroque Soloists (Berlin Philharmonic), the Canadian Violons du Roy, the Chamber Orchestra Basel or the NDR Radiophilharmonie. 

Chamber music plays a notable role in the richly varied spectrum of Maurice Steger's artistic ­endeavours. With fellow musicians and friends such as Hille Perl, Marco Postinghel, Xenia Löffler, Daniele Caminiti, Naoki Kitaya, ­M­auro ­Valli, ­Sebastian Wienand and Fiorenza de Donatis, he dedicates himself to a ­continuously updated repertoire of Early music. He also performs with artist colleagues such as Cecilia Bartoli, Andreas Scholl, Pablo Heras-Casado, Laurence Cummings, Nuria Rial, Bernard Labadie, Sandrine Piau, Diego Fasolis and Sol Gabetta. Along with early music,  Maurice Steger also engages with new concert formats and contemporary compositions.

Tours of Asia and Australia have led to performances with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Taipei Symphony among others. He was the first recorder player from the West to perform with the Traditional Taipei Chinese Orchestra. He also regularly performs in North and South America.

His commitment to musical education is also extremely important to him: in order to encourage young children to playfully engage with classical music, he invented the character of "Tino Flautino", and has performed hundreds of children's concerts in this role. For his latest musical fairytale, he invented "Pinocchio and the recorder player". Maurice Steger also gives various master classes each year, and in 2013 took over the directorship of the Gstaad ­Baroque Academy at the Menuhin Festival Gstaad.

'Mr. Corelli in London', 'Una Follia di ­Napoli', '­Vivaldi: Concerti per flauto' and 'Telemann: ­Recorder Works' with The English Concert, I ­Barocchisti and the Akademie für Alte Musik ­Berlin: numerous award-winning CD recordings ­published by ­harmonia mundi, most of them with highly ­imaginative thematic concepts, are a long-standing testament to the unique prominence achieved by this artist.

The current music project "Souvenirs d'Italie" with exciting new discoveries from the Naples of the ­early 18th century has already won many of the most ­important international record awards.