Joel Frederiksen, bass, archlute & direction
Alena Hellerová, soprano
Jan Čižmář, theorbo & lute
Michael Eberth, organ
Theona Gubba-Chkheidze, violin
Julia Scheerer, violin
Domen Marinčič, viola da gamba

Ensemble Phoenix Munich (EPM) was established in 2003 by Joel Frederiksen, an early music specialist, after moving to Munich, Germany. Since 2007, the group has presented a concert series in Munich at the Bavarian National Museum and performed at leading international festivals. EPM recorded four successful CDs with harmonia mundi France and now records for SONY/DHM.

EPMs programing reflects the wide-ranging experience and interests of its founder and director, Joel Frederiksen, presenting music from the European Renaissance and Baroque (c1500-1650) to Early America (c1640-1860). The ensemble has also commissioned new works from contemporary composers.

The focus of artistic director Joel Frederiksen is on innovative and original programming based on careful research. The ensemble regularly performs from original facsimiles, uses historical instruments and tunings appropriate to country and time period, and adheres as closely as possible to recent research regarding all aspects of interpretation. At the same time, the ultimate goal in performance is meaningful communication with the audience. Ensemble Phoenix Munich programs are engaging and seek, to use the Baroque expression, to reach and to move the "affections" of the listeners.

Joel Frederiksen, bass
Bass singer and lutenist, Joel Frederiksen, lives Munich, Germany. He performs with leaders in the early music world including Dame Emma Kirkby, Jordi Savall or Paul O’Dette, and with leading ensembles such as the Freiburger Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Gilles Binchois and Huelgas Ensemble. Joel studied voice and lute in New York and Michigan, where he received his master’s degree. Between 1990 and 1999 he was a member of two distinguished ensembles for early music in the United States, The Waverly Consort and the Boston Camerata. His wide-ranging basso profundo voice and expressive performances have earned him worldwide acclaim.

For many years Joel Frederiksen has dedicated himself intensively to his specialty, the selfaccompanied lute song. After moving to Germany, he established Ensemble Phoenix Munich for the 2003 recording of Orpheus, I am. In 2007 the early music series „Between Mars and Venus“, with concerts primarily at the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, was founded. In four concerts a season they have explored English, Italian, French and German repertoires from the Renaissance and Baroque. Excursions into the earliest music of Frederiksen's home country, the USA, resulted in the highly praised harmonia mundi CD released in 2011, Rose of Sharon (Billboard Top Ten, Amazon Bestseller).

Ensemble Phoenix Munich’s debut CD for harmonia mundi France, The Elfin Knight, was released in August 2007 to glowing reviews and was re-released in 2018 on their “Gold” label. In 2008 Joel Frederiksen was awarded the title „Classical Musician of the Year” by Munich’s Evening News (Abendzeitung). He received the German Record Critics' Prize for his second harmonia mundi release, O felice morire in November 2008. The French Critics awarded Joel Frederiksen the Orphée d'Or in 2011 for his singing on a CD of solos and duets with soprano, Dame Emma Kirkby. EPMs recording, Requiem for a Pink Moon received the German Echo Prize in 2013. He has been honored several times by his alma mater, Oakland University in Michigan (MA Early Music), most recently receiving the Distinguished Alumni Award.

Frederiksen continues to appear as a guest artist throughout Europe and in the US and is under an exclusive recording contract with SONY. The 2016 release, Tell me true love (Music of John Dowland) was followed in 2018 by a CD of Spanish and Latin American music for Christmas, Un niño nos es naçido. In November 2019 his Ensemble Phoenix Munich presented programs of German and Italian Baroque music in Vietnam as guests of the Goethe Institute, and in December he tours Monteverdi’s Marienvespers with Andrew Parrott conducting the Netherlands Bach Society. Highlights of 2020 include an American tour of Daniel and the Lions (King Darius) with the Boston Camerata, an EPM tour of Passio–Baroque Laments for the Passion of Christ in the US and Canada, concerts of his solo program Orpheus, I am in Switzerland, France and Malta, and singing the role of Seneca in Claudio Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea in Den Hague, Netherlands.