Felix Koch
Felix Koch is active as a conductor, ensemble leader, cellist, festival director, and educator. Since 2007, he has been the director of the Neumeyer Consort, which he co-founded.
Koch was born in 1969 in Saarbrücken, West Germany. He studied both conducting and cello from the beginning, taking classes from Wolfgang Heinzel in Saarbrücken and from Christoph Siebert at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main. He developed an interest in early music and had conducting lessons from historical performance specialists Michael Hofstetter, Konrad Junghänel, and Ton Koopman. As a cellist, Koch studied with Michael Flaksman in Mannheim, Martin Ostertag in Karlsruhe, and with Rainer Zipperling in Frankfurt, where he began to specialize in Baroque cello. He also found time to earn a music education degree at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. He went on to teach at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt and the University of Mainz, where he founded the Gutenberg Kammerchor in 2013 and served as vice-rector from 2015 to 2017. Koch played for some years with the Ensemble Concertino Saarbrücken and recorded with that group as early as 1997.
In 1999, Koch co-founded the Ensemble Mediolanum with keyboardist Wiebke Weidanz and recorder player Sabine Ambos. He co-founded the Neumeyer Concert with violinist Barbara Mauch-Heinke and keyboardist Markus Stein in 2007, and as of the early 2020s, he remained the group's director. Meanwhile, Koch's career as a cellist was flourishing. He has played under conductors Junghänel, Koopman, and Masaaki Suzuki, among others, and he has appeared as a soloist or with ensembles around Europe and the U.S. and as far afield as Russia and South Africa. Koch led the Neumeyer Consort in recordings of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and St. Mark Passion, BWV 244 (the latter in its rare 1744 version) for the Christophorus label in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Later in 2018, he moved to the Rondeau label with the Neumeyer Consort and the Gutenberg Kammerchor for a recording of Bach's Himmelfahrtsoratorium, BWV 11. In 2022 and 2023, the Neumeyer Consort and the newly created Gutenberg Soloists issued a complete recording in two volumes of Telemann's complete cantatas from his so-called Französischer Jahrgang ("French Year").
© James Manheim /TiVo
Discography
10 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
-
Georg Philipp Telemann: Complete Cantatas Vol. 3
Gutenberg Soloists, Neumeyer Consort, Felix Koch
Klassiek - Released by CPO on 18 jan. 2024
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Georg Friedrich Händel: Messiah (Early Version 1741, First Recording)
Gutenberg-Kammerchor, Felix Koch, Neumeyer Consort
Klassiek - Released by Rondeau Production on 1 dec. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Sebastian Bach: Himmelfahrtsoratorium BWV 11 (BWV 11, BWV 37, BWV 34)
Gutenberg-Kammerchor, Neumeyer Consort, Felix Koch, Johann Sebastian Bach
Klassiek - Released by Rondeau Production on 27 apr. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Messiah HWV 56 Early Version 1741: No 12 Chorus: For Unto Us a Child Is Born
Gutenberg-Kammerchor, Felix Koch, Neumeyer Consort
Klassiek - Released by Rondeau Production on 13 okt. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Händel: Messiah HWV 56, No 24: All We, Like Sheep (Early Version 1741, First Recording)
Gutenberg-Kammerchor, Felix Koch, Neumeyer Consort
Klassiek - Released by Rondeau Production on 8 sep. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Messiah HWV 56 Early Version 1741: No 50 Chorus: Worthy Is the Lamb
Gutenberg-Kammerchor, Felix Koch, Neumeyer Consort
Klassiek - Released by Rondeau Production on 10 nov. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Telemann: Ouverture-suites
Neumeyer Consort, Kerstin Fahr, Felix Koch
Klassiek - Released by Christophorus on 26 mei 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046-1051
Neumeyer Consort, Markus Stein, Felix Koch
Klassiek - Released by Christophorus on 29 apr. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Messiah HWV 56 Early Version 1741: No 45 Air (Basso): The Trumpet Shall Sound
Felix Koch, Neumeyer Consort, Julian Dominique Clement
Klassiek - Released by Rondeau Production on 27 okt. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Messiah HWV 56 Early Version 1741: No 18 Air (Alto): He Shall Feed His Flock
Felix Koch, Neumeyer Consort, Stefanie Schaefer
Klassiek - Released by Rondeau Production on 29 sep. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo