The musicians perform one quarter of their concerts under guest conductors, such as Ivor Bolton, René Jacobs, Philippe Herreweghe or Trevor Pinnock. Most of the remaining concerts are performed under their own musical direction. This is shared by Gottfried von der Goltz and Petra Müllejans, who draw up the concert programmes and conduct the rehearsals and the concerts from the leader’s chair. Successful productions such as the CD of Mozart Arias, with the soprano Sandrine Piau under the direction of Gottfried von der Goltz, or Symphonie 6-8 by Joesph Haydn conducted by Petra Müllejans are just some of the fruits of this shared direction.

How is the musical direction shared? Not so much in keeping with rules or the repertoire, as in the most open decision-making process possible, in which personal preferences and musical temperament play as important a role as the agreements of a programme planning group. The latter includes not only the musical directors, but a representative of the wind instruments section and also the orchestra manager, who has to ensure that the concert programmes can be sold.

And because scarcely anything is regulated from above at the Freiburger Barockorchester, it was the musicians who chose Gottfried von der Goltz and Petra Müllejans as musical directors.