About Susanna

A recorder virtuoso familiar with both contemporary and early music, Susanna Borsch is one of the few instrumentalists able to bridge both styles of music with complete ease. Susanna’s first solo cd off-limits featured several new works composed especially for her and the combination of recorder with live electronics, and received critical acclaim from all quarters when issued in 2006.

Susanna Borsch’s solo programme Susie, tell me a story! was premiered in March 2014 and was subsequently performed in The Netherlands and at international festivals, universities and concert series. The new compositions were recorded and released at Karnatic Lab Records in the same year.

Since April 2014 she is teaching at the Trossingen University of Music at the Early Music Department.

Her ensembles:

The renaissance recorder consort Mezzaluna, which interprets polyphonic music composed between ca. 1480 and 1630, using historically documented performance practice. With its somewhat 'fundamentalist' approach, their fan club is very 'eclectic' (=small!), but who knows, and we'll manage another programme/cd/performance again!

ELECTRA, a four-member modern music ensemble combining the latest music with visual and theatrical elements with violin (Diamanda Dramm), voice (Michaela Riener), piano (Saskia Lankhoorn) and recorder (me). Our new programme is called FACE: a one-hour long composition by Yannis Kyriakides and visuals by Johannes Schwartz. First performances took place at November Music in 2018 and at the Korzo in Den Haag, and even Nicosia in Cyprus!

Since 2009 Susanna plays in Dapper’s Delight, a duo of recorder and anglo concertina (Adrian Brown), formed to explore popular dance music and songs of the period 1550-1750, particularly pieces that are found in both high and low cultural sources. They perform their repertoire or historical popular music (aka "hist-pop") often in house concert settings, regularly in The Netherlands, about every second year in the UK, and sometimes even in as far away countries as Australia: one of our highlights in 2018 was the invitation to the International Music Festival in Canberra!

In 2014, Susanna joined BRISK recorder quartet. Since then, BRISK performed and recorded a Bach-programme, and a programme with music inspired by the Iberian peninsula "Canção". In 2019, BRISK is performed and recorded a programme with soprano Amaryllis Dieltiens: "Always about Love". In 2021, BRISK developed the family programme "Hoedje" for everybody from 5 years and older, as well as the programme "Four in One", that will be released on CD in November.

Hexnut, a contemporary music band formed in 2004 comprising the unusual combination of flute, recorder, trumpet, voice and piano. WRENCH was their last programme, who knows what lies in store for this group in the future.

And then, in 2020, Susanna joined Flautando Köln, the 30-plus-year-young recorder quartet from Germany. Before travelling with them to their numerous engagements, Corona messed with their schedule too, and many of the concerts had to be postponed to a later date. But now, in 2023, the future looks bright and busy!

In 2022 Flautando Köln got a grant from the Musikrat in Germany, which enabled them to create the programme "Jack & Jill", a theatrical concert, or a cross-over performance or something in-between. We joined forces with actor Heikko Deutschmann and multi-instrumentatlist and composer Albrecht Maurer.

contact: susanna.borsch (at) gmail.com