Ensemble Castor was founded in 2010 by internationally successful Austrian musicians, and is devoted to string chamber music of the period between 1600 and 1750. Their main focus is on the Italian Seicento and Settecento as well as on the pre-classical music in Austria and Germany.
The ensemble’s musical director is the Austrian violinist Petra Samhaber-Eckhardt, who studied with Enrico Onofri and Andrew Manze in Italy and London.
Ensemble Castor collaborates with labels as SONY and Note 1 and their recordings have received fantastic international reviews.
Castor works closely together with Enrico Onofri, Rodolfo Richter, Dorothee Oberlinger, Silvia Frigato, Mireille Lebel, Christina Gansch and other famous singers and instrumentalists.
Castor performs at many international festivals such as ‘Internationale Barocktage Melk’, ‘Carinthischer Sommer’, ‘Festival St.Gallen’, Internationale Festwochen Innsbruck, ‘Fränkischer Sommer’, ‘Händel Haus Halle’ , Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Frankfurt, Mosel Musikfestival, Brucknerhaus and Konzerthaus Vienna, Vancouver Early Music, Boston Early Music, Ottawa and New York.
A great ambition of Ensemble Castor is to work with fortepiano on classical music.
In 2015 Castor won the culture prize of the city of Linz. Many excellent concert reviews give evidence of the high quality of their work: ‘The young ensemble offered fulminant interpretations’, ‘Castor awakes early music to completely new life’.
`These players never fail to find something to say…lovely , imaginative performances on some sweet sounding instruments.´, Grammophone magazine
The name Castor refers to the twin stars Castor and Pollux in the zodiac of Gemini.