Susanne Heinrich plays the viola da gamba. Born and raised in southwest Germany, she also lived in Uganda and England, and is currently based in London, UK. After the family attended a viol consort performance in Exeter, Susanne and her mother came to share an enthusiasm for early music, nurtured by recordings of Emma Kirkby, Jordi Savall, and Wieland Kuijken.

She studied at the Meistersinger Conservatory of Nuremberg, the Frankfurt State Academy of Music (with Rainer Zipperling), and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Her repertoire includes English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian music for the viol, from the 16th to 18th centuries. She has made 15 recordings with Charivari Agréable (mostly for Signum Records) and has been with the Palladian Ensemble since 1994.

She received an Editor's Choice Gramophone Award in 2008 and a Diapason d'Or for the album Mr. Abel's Fine Airs, of solo works by Carl Friedrich Abel. In May 2010 she received another Gramophone Editor's Choice award for Passion and Division, an album of works by Tobias Hume. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians praised her as one of the 'leading players' of her generation.

Besides performing and some private teaching, Susanne Heinrich contributes articles and reviews to early-music magazines and is chief editor of Charivari Agréable Publications, which specializes in previously unpublished early music. In 2009 she became administrator of the Viola da Gamba Society of Great Britain.

http://www.susanneheinrich.co.uk/