Dorothee Mühleisen comes from a musical family in Stuttgart (Germany). During her violin studies in Köln (Cologne) she developed an interest in historically-informed music performance through her passion for early music. This led on to specialisation in early music performance at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, followed by study in baroque violin performance at Den Haag with Sigiswald Kuijken, Enrico Gatti, Ryo Terakado and others. She regards this music as her spiritual home. Dorothee performs regularly with various groups in the Netherlands and Germany including The Hague International Baroque Orchestra, Berlin Barock, Stella Maris Berlin, La Dolcezza, and the Wallfisch Band, and has collaborated over many years with Frieder Bernius (Stuttgart), the Bachstiftung of St Gallen (director Rudolf Lutz) and La Banda (Munich/Augsburg). She lives and teaches in Berlin.
Michael Shields is a retired German lecturer at the University of Galway (School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures). As well as modern German language and literature, his research specialisms include a main focus on medieval song, on the reconstruction of medieval German and European poetic traditions, and on surviving evidence of their realisation through music and dance. Parallel to this, Michael has nurtured a passion for performing early music, starting in the early 1970s when he was a choirboy in Dublin and first heard harpsichord performances by David Lee and John O’Sullivan. Harpsichords were like gold dust in 1970s Ireland, so he studied piano and organ instead: first with David Lee (RIAM) and then with Carla Schröter (Freiburg/Breisgau, FRG). He has been playing harpsichords since buying his first instrument in 1988.
