Johannes Festerling - George Frideric Handel: Il Sassone (A Domestic Opera) (2023)

Annie Gard was born in Australia, where she completed her Bachelor's degree with first class honours at the Sydney Conservatory of Music. Two years later she received her Master's degree from The Juilliard School in New York. Various invitations brought her to Europe, where she played under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. This was followed by engagements with The English Concert and with Boston Early Music Festival, as well as Pinchgut Opera in Sydney. She has performed at festivals including William Christie's Festival Dans Les Jardins in France and the Festival Teatro Nuovo in New York. Annie currently lives and works in Germany.

Johannes Festerling, Guitar and Theorbo
Thomas Fields, Viola da gamba and Cello
Annie Gard, Violin
Theo Small, Recorder and Traverso

Johannes Festerling received his first musical training at the Kreismusikschule Wernigerode in the Harz Mountains Region (Saxony-Anhalt) of Germany. He studied classical guitar with Prof. Jens Wagner at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, where he was already intensively involved in performance practice on historical guitar and lute instruments. He subsequently took up studies in early music with Prof. Joachim Held and has since performed regularly both as a soloist and as a continuo player, including with the European Hanseatic Ensemble (Manfred Cordes), Utrecht Company of Music, Musica assoluta (Hannover), the Boys' Choir Unser Lieben Frauen Bremen (Ulrich Kaiser) and various chamber music ensembles. In 2020 he was cultural ambassador for the State of Bremen at the celebrations for the 30th anniversary of German reunification. He has received much encouragement and inspiration from masterclasses with renowned lutenists such as Nigel North, Paul O'Dette and Evangelina Mascardi.

Theo Small was born in Sydney, Australia and grew up in a musical family. His parents were both keen amateur recorder players and much of Theo’s early life was spent playing consort music with his family. After graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with a Bachelor of Music (Performance - Recorder and Traverso), Theo moved to Germany to begin a Masters of Music at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, studying with Prof. Marten Root. Theo has performed with groups such as De Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Orchestra and Musica Sequenza and worked with conductors such as Phillipe Herreweghe, Neal Peres da Costa and Brett Weymark. Alongside his career as a performing musician, Theo has worked as a cabinet maker and an audio technician.

The gambist and cellist Thomas Fields was born in Minneapolis, United States, where he grew up. He studied cello at the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music in New York, during which time he began to deepen his interest and experience with historical performance practice on both cello and viola da gamba. In 2017 he moved to Germany to study a masters in viola da gamba with Prof. Hille Perl at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, after which he pursued postgraduate studies on viola da gamba with Prof. Friederike Heumann at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg. He has attended master classes with Paolo Pandolfo, Vittorio Ghielmi, Jaap ter Linden, Christophe Coin, among others, and also received the China Government Scholarship as a visiting student in musicology at the Central Music Conservatory in Beijing, China. Thomas has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, St. Thomas Church (Leipzig), Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice), and the National Center for the Performing Arts (Beijing).