Xenia Löffler

The Baroque oboist Xenia Löffler has been prominent among German historical-instrument players as a soloist, as principal oboist of the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, and as leader of her own Amphion Wind Octet. She is also an important educator. Löffler was born in Erlangen, in the German state of Bavaria, in 1972. Her love of Baroque oboe began in 1990, when she played one of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach recordings on a new stereo she had just bought -- her first. She enrolled at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, a major center for the study of early music, and also studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in the Netherlands. In 1998, Löffler and some of her classmates from Basel formed the Amphion Wind Octet, who have recorded nine albums and appeared at various European festivals. A breakthrough came in 2000 when Löffler joined the touring version of Gardiner's English Baroque Soloists, performing on his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, which featured renditions of Bach cantatas in places associated with their origins. The following year, she joined the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, one of Germany's top Baroque orchestras, rising to the position of principal oboist. She has performed as an oboe soloist with ensembles including the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle, Prague's Collegium 1704, and the Händel-Festspielorchester in Halle. Löffler has taught since 2004 at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, Germany, and often gives master classes in Germany and beyond. Her recording career has focused on neglected repertory for the Baroque oboe, including a 2014 release on Accent that featured music by the brother pair of Johann Gottlieb Graun and Carl Heinrich Graun. She released an album of Bach oboe concertos on Accent in 2018, and the following year she was featured on a Harmonia Mundi release of Bach's music by violinist Isabelle Faust. ~ James Manheim