The Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble is made up of outstanding international instrumentalists and was founded by Thomas Hengelbrock in 1995. The Ensemble has earned an excellent reputation under Hengelbrock’s artistic direction. The press ranks the Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble among the outstanding international Baroque orchestras and has called attention to the extraordinary intensity and expressive power of its playing. The repertoire ranges from early Baroque to modern, and is performed in accordance with historical performance practice on the appropriate instrumentarium. The Ensemble’s focus is on the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble made its debut in 1995 in Innsbruck with Alessandro Scarlatti’s opera “Il Mitridate Eupatore”. It was “ensemble-in-residence” for twelve years at the Schwetzingen Festival, where it successfully presented newly discovered Baroque works, including the first modern revival of Giovanni Legrenzi’s “La Divisione del Mondo” in a coproduction with the Innsbruck Festival. Under the baton of Thomas Hengelbrock, a number of productions, such as Joseph Haydn’s “L’Anima del Filosofo” and Mozart’s “Zauberflöte”, were developed in close collaboration with the stage director Achim Freyer.