Christina Pluhar

Christina Pluhar, founder and artistic director of the L’Arpeggiata, discoverd – after classical guitar studies at the University of her hometown Graz – her deep affinity for Renaissance and Baroque music.

She devoted herself to the studies of the lute, theorbo, baroque guitar and baroque harp at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (Netherlands) with Toyohiko Satoh and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Switzerland) with Hopkinson Smith and at the Schuola Civica di Milano (Italy) with Mara Galassi, followed by master classes with Paul O’Dettes, Andrew Lawrence King and Jesper Christensen. In 1992, she obtained her diploma for Early Music as well as a first prize at the International Music Competition of Malmö with the ensemble La Fenice.

Her repertoire includes music of the Renaissance and Baroque for lute, baroque guitar, archlute, theorbo and baroque harp, where she excelled as soloist.

In 1992 she moved to Paris, where she performed as a soloist and continuo player in with ensembles including La Fenice (Jean Tubéry), Hesperion XXI (Jordi Savall), Il Giardino Armonico, Concerto Soave (Maria-Cristina Kiehr) Accordone (Marco Beasley) Elyma (Gabriel Garrido), Les Musiciens du Louvre (Marc Minkowski), Ricercar Consort (Philippe Pierlot), La Grande Ecurie and the King’s Chamber (Jean-Claude Malgoire), Cantus Cölln (Konrad Junghänel) amongst others. As a continuo player, she is sought by orchestras under the direction of René Jacobs, Ivor Bolton, Alessandro di Marchi, Marc Minkowski, Gabriel Garrido. From 2001 to 2005 she was assistant of the conductor Ivor Bolton at the Munich opera. As a guest conductor, she was invited to conduct the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (Sydney), the European Baroque Orchestra (EUBO) and the Orchestra Divino Sospiro (Portugal).

From 1993, she conducted master classes at Graz University, and from 1999 has served as professor of Baroque harp at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

In 2000 she founded L’Arpeggiata and led her ensemble virtually overnight to success with its first recordings, issued to great acclaim since the year it was founded. Among Pluhar’s most acclaimed recordings are the albums Stefano Landi, La Tarantella, All’Improvviso (with Gianluigi Trovesi), Los Impossibles (with the King’s Singers), as well as the Virgin Classics CDs Teatro d’amore (with Philippe Jaroussky and Nuria Rial), Via Crucis (with Barbara Furtuna), Los Pájaros perdidos (the South American Project), Mediterraneo (with the Fado Singer Misia) and Music for a while (Improvisations on Henry Purcell).

In 2012, L’Arpeggiata was the first baroque ensemble to be granted an artistic residence at Carnegie Hall.