The Freiburger Barockorchester (Freiburg Baroque Orchestra) is a period-instrument ensemble focused on the authentic performance of Baroque music, though its repertoire extends into the Classical and Romantic periods as well. The group is mainly led by the concertmaster and often features members of the ensemble as soloists.

The Freiburger Barockorchester was founded in 1987 in the German city known as the unofficial "Capital of the Black Forest" by a group of students who shared an interest in playing Baroque music on authentic period instruments. The orchestra performed without a conductor during the first three years of its existence, preferring to select a musician from within its ranks to lead its music on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, in 1990, Thomas Hengelbrock was named joint musical director along with Gottfried von der Goltz, a situation that lasted until 1997, when Hengelbrock stepped down. His place was taken by Petra Müllejans, who lead the Freiburger Barockorchester in tandem with von der Goltz. Müllejans was succeeded by Kristian Bezuidenhout in 2017. The ensemble regularly performs with guest conductors for more expansive works and still often performs without a conductor.

The Freiburger Barockorchester tours all over the world and records with frequency; it utilizes distinguished guest conductors on about a quarter of its public concerts, but not on recordings. The orchestra contributed some of the very best recordings to be issued by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in the waning years of its association with BMG. The group's controversial recording of the J.S. Bach Mass in B minor, led by Hengelbrock and featuring the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, is perhaps the only recording of this work in recent memory to approach Bach's masterwork from a genuinely new perspective. The Freiburger Barockorchester is also known for its capability accompanying singers, such as Sandrine Piau and Angelika Kirchschlager; the latter appears with the group on a Christmas DVD entitled Sounds Like Christmas. Although it did not accompany Cecilia Bartoli on her recording Opera Proibita, the Freiburger Barockorchester accompanied Bartoli in touring with its program, with Müllejans leading the ensemble. The Freiburger BarockConsort is a chamber group that is drawn from the inner ranks of the Freiburger Barockorchester.

Since BMG folded its classical operation in 1999, the Freiburger Barockorchester has appeared on the Virgin, Naïve, and Harmonia Mundi labels, among others. The group earned Ensemble of the Year (Historical Instruments) at the 2012 Echo Klassik Awards. The Freiburger Barockorchester has remained active as a recording group, issuing several albums most years. Among these is an Aparte recording of Mozart's Youth Symphonies in 2019 and a cycle of Beethoven's piano concertos on Harmonia Mundi, with Bezuidenhout as the soloist and Pablo Heras-Casado conducting; the final volume of this set was released in 2022. That year, the Freiburger Barockorchester signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis & Keith Finke

Bernarda Fink had considerable local success in Argentina before beginning to achieve international attention as a mezzo-soprano in the late 1990s.

She was born to a Slovenian family in Buenos Aires. The family had musical talent: Two younger siblings--Marko (who has sung Arturo in Lucia di Lamermoor) and Veronika (at the turn of the millenium beginning her career at the opera in Ljubljana)--are also singers.

Bernarda began musical and vocal studies at the Instituto Superior de Arte, a school associated with the Teatro Colón, South America's leading opera house, where she frequently appeared. Other Argentine venues where she sang during these formative years were the Festivales Musicales de Buenos Aires.

In 1985 she won the country's Nuevas Voces Liricas (New Lyrical Voices) Competition, leading to her moving to Europe where she began a notable concert career. She has appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the French Radio Philharmonic, the French National Orchestra, the Orchestra of Suisse Romande, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the New Japan Philharmonic. She also sings with chamber and original instrument groups such as I Solisti Veneti, the English Baroque Soloists, Les Musiciens du Louvre, and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

She is also an active recital singer, including an appearance at the New York Festival of Song in Carnegie Hall.

She established her operatic career with the Grand Théâtre of Geneva. While living in that city she married Valentin Inzko, a Slovenian diplomat. (She is, therefore, sometimes booked as Bernarda Fink-Inzko). She jokes that between his diplomatic postings and her world-wide touring the couple have a "Gypsy existence."

Other operatic appearances have included the Czech National Opera, operas of Montpellier and Innbruck, Barcelona, and the Netherlands Opera. Her repertory includes Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, Humperdink's Hansel und Gretel, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Rossini's La Cenerentola, Mozart's Così fan tutte and other operas. Among her concert works are Wagner's Wesendonk Lieder, Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été, Dvorák's Biblical Songs, and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.

René Jacobs began his career as a countertenor and quickly earned the reputation as one of the finest of his time. He gradually turned to conducting and, since the turn of the new century, has rarely sung in concert. As a countertenor, Jacobs championed a string of forgotten Baroque composers on his recordings: Antonio Cesti, Sigismondo d'India, and Luca Marenzio, to name a few, but he also sang, in both concert and opera, many standards by Monteverdi, J.S. Bach, and Handel, among others. As a conductor, he has led many performances of sacred music by Bach and Buxtehude and has focused heavily on the operas of Monteverdi, Handel, and Mozart. He has conducted purely orchestral music as well, notably symphonies by Haydn and Mozart. In 2021, Jacobs issued a recording of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester and Berlin RIAS Kammerkor.

Jacobs was born in Ghent, Belgium, on October 30, 1946. As a child, he was a chorister at St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent. After obtaining a degree in philology from Ghent University, he studied voice with Louis Devos and Lucie Frateur. Later, he took master classes with countertenor Alfred Deller. Already active on the concert stage, Jacobs made his operatic debut in Amsterdam in 1974, singing Clerio in Francesco Cavalli's Erismena. In 1977, Jacobs founded Concerto Vocale, an ensemble he would appear with in many concerts, operatic productions, and recordings. By the 1980s, Jacobs was steeped in conducting commitments, though he continued to sing, often in the same concerts. He was also editing performing editions of operas, as he famously did for the 1989 performance he led at the Opera de Montpellier of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. In the 1990s, Jacobs established his credentials as one of the finest conductors on record of Mozart's operas. His 1998 Così fan tutte, for Harmonia Mundi, became one of the label's best-selling recordings, but it wasn't just his Mozart that drew attention: Jacobs' performances of Haydn's Il mondo della luna at the 2001 Innsbruck Early Music Festival and at the Staatsoper unter den Linden the following year drew lavish critical praise. Jacobs served as the artistic director of the Innsbruck Early Music Festival from 1996 until 2009.

He hasn't slowed down his performing and recording pace in the 21st century, and his more than 200 releases are available on a variety of labels, including Harmonia Mundi, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, and Berlin Classics, among others. Jacobs has earned many awards in his career, including several Cannes Classical Awards (one for his recording of Handel's Rinaldo in 2004), the prestigious Diapason d'Or more than ten times (one for his recording of Haydn's The Seasons in 2005), and a Grammy Award in 2005 for his recording of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. In 2021, he led the Freiburger Barockorchester and Berlin RIAS Kammerkor in a recording of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, on Harmonia Mundi. ~ Robert Cummings