Viktor Töpelmann & Daniela Niedhammer
Biography Viktor Töpelmann & Daniela Niedhammer
Viktor Töpelmann
Inspired by the 18th-century ideal of joining “head, heart and hand” Viktor Töpelmann strives to be a well-rounded musician combining performance, teaching and musicological research. For Viktor music is not an artificial end in itself but a vital form of human expression and communication. He read music at King’s College London and studied baroque cello and viola da gamba at the Royal Academy of Music London and at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. While he was still studying in Cologne, Viktor played the cello with the L’Orfeo Barockorchester Linz and with Concerto con anima (Cologne). Since then he went on to perform as cellist and viol-player throughout Europe, working with conductors such as Gustav Leonhardt, Laurence Cummings, Shunske Sato et al. In 2008 he was a founding member of The Wallfisch Band, an ensemble directed by Elizabeth Wallfisch. With his own group Ensemble Templum Musicum Viktor puts his focus on English and German music of the 17th century ranging from Orlando Gibbons and Heinrich Schütz to Henry Purcell and Dieterich Buxtehude. Together with the cellist Gerhart Darmstadt he forms the Duo Corona Musica. Concerts as soloist on the viol or the baroque cello complement his performance activities and he appeared internationally alongside musical colleagues such as Elizabeth Wallfisch (violin), Simon Standage (violin), Menno van Delft (harpsichord) and Daniela Niedhammer (harpsichord & organ). In recent years, he regularly leads orchestral concerts from the cello seat and conducts large-scale performances of oratorios and operas. Since 2015 he has been the musical director of the Vokal Ensemble München, a chamber choir based in Munich. Viktor is also a dedicated teacher and lecturer: he taught viola da gamba, chamber music and performance practice at the Royal Academy of Music London and ran seminars in performance practice at the universities in Munich and Augsburg. Furthermore, Viktor regularly directs Early Music projects and gives classes in performance practice at several universities in Taiwan. In 2016 Viktor was awarded a PhD in historical musicology at King’s College London, which was fully funded by the King’s College Graduate School. He has researched and published widely on the Mozart family, Salzburg culture in the 18th century and historical string instruments. Equipped with a profound knowledge of performing practices and the historical and intellectual environment, in which the music was conceived and performed, Viktor draws on this background as a continuous source of inspiration for a creative approach to music making today.
