Michi Gaigg
was born in Schörfling at the Attersee, Austria (Salzkammergut). She was strongly influenced by Nikolaus Harnoncourt during her violin studies at the Salzburg Mozarteum and subsequently continued studies of the Baroque violin with Ingrid Seifert and Sigiswald Kuijken. Michi Gaigg was a member of internationally acclaimed ensembles and worked together with Frans Brüggen, Alan Curtis, Christopher Hogwood, René Jacobs, Ton Koopman and Hermann Max.
Michi Gaigg founded the Baroque orchestra L’Arpa Festante Munich in 1983 (direction until 1995) and profited from many valuable experiences as member of internationally renowned ensembles, working with Frans Brüggen, Alan Curtis, Christopher Hogwood, René Jacobs, Ton Koopman and Hermann Max. After having lived in London, The Hague, Munich, Cologne, Strasbourg and Tübingen she returned to Austria.
In 1996 she founded the L’Orfeo Barockorchester together with the recorder and oboe player Carin van Heerden. Under Michi Gaigg’s direction the orchestra has established itself as one of the leading ensembles in historically informed performance practice and has repeatedly been awarded various prizes for its CD recordings by Diapason, Pizzicato (”Supersonic Award”), Le Monde de la Musique, Fono Forum, Radio Österreich 1 (”Pasticcio Prize”) as well as the German Music Award “Echo Klassik 2009″.
Michi Gaigg’s pedagogical career started in 1987 at the Conservatoire National de Strasbourg amid extensive activities as instrumentalist and conductor. She has been teaching at the Institute for Early Music at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz since 1994. In 2003 she took on the position of artistic director of the donauFESTWOCHEN im strudengau, a festival for Early and Contemporary music, for which she has been awarded the “Grosser Bühnenkunstpreis” (Great Price for Stagecraft) and the “Kulturmedaille” (Medal for Cultural Achievements) of the province of Upper Austria.
Opera productions are becoming increasingly important in Michi Gaigg’s work. Recently staged works are: Handel’s first opera Almira, Queen of Castille, Georg Philipp Telemann’s Orpheus or The Constancy of Love, Zaide by W. A. Mozart, Romeo und Julie by Georg Anton Benda (2007), Joseph Haydn’s The desert Insel and a trilogy of early operas by Gioachino Rossini (Il signor Bruschino, La scala di seta und La cambiale di matrimonio).
Opera & Oratorio Productions 2011-12: Georg Phlipp Telemann Miriways, George Frederic Handel, “Brockes Passion”, W.A. Mozart Betulia liberata
Interviews & Portraits:
Ein Herz für das Barocke - Michi Gaigg, ein Beitrag von Jan Ritterstaedt
(Ausschnitt aus WDR 3 TonArt, Donnerstag, 19. Mai 2011)
Music & Theatre, September 2009
Laudatio zur Verleihung des Bühnenkunstpreises an Michi Gaigg by Norbert Trawöger