Conrad Steinmann
flutist and archeologist of sound
Conrad Steinmann was born in 1951, in Rapperswil. In his work with the recorder and the aulos, in his compositions, and through his global network as the organiser of the International Recorder Days, he explores music from anitquity to the present day. After studying the recorder with Hans-Martin Linde, he taught at the Zurich Music Academy from 1975-1982. In 1982, he was appointed lecturer at the Schola Cantorum in Basel. Alongside a long-standing collaboration with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Zurich Opera, the award-winning musician has engaged in intensive archaeological and instrumental research on ancient Greek music. In collaboration with instrument maker Paul J. Reichlin, he has reconstructed ancient Greek musical instruments which served as the basis for his series of compositions of "imagined music from the 5th and 6th centuries BC”. His concert performances have taken him to Europe, Asia, and South America as a soloist, with the flute quartet diferencias, the Melpolmen Ensemble, and others. In 2016, he was awarded the Zollikon Art Prize. He has written several books; his most recent, "Nachklänge: Instrumente der griechischen Klassik und ihre Musik”, a comprehensive study of the instruments and music of Ancient Greece, was published in February 2021.
