The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (FBO) will have a new leadership team in July 2026. Selma Brauns will become Artistic Director and Paul Enke Commercial Director, according to a statement released by the orchestra on Tuesday. The statement said that with them, the orchestra gains a dual leadership "that combines artistic curiosity with a great openness to the developments of our time.".

Selma Brauns and Paul Enke

Brauns and Enke are succeeding long-time managing director and artistic director Hans-Georg Kaiser. Born in 1961, Kaiser has shaped the management of the FBO since 1989. He will now serve as Senior Director of Development & Relations, responsible for fundraising, sponsorship, and relationship management for the orchestra.

Brauns played violin in the German National Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and studied at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. As a founding member and managing director of ensemble reflektor and as managing director of the PODIUM Esslingen Chamber Music Festival, she helped shape innovative concert formats, new approaches to audiences, and artistic experiments.

Enke studied at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin and cultural management at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre. After an engagement at the German National Theatre in Weimar, he was closely associated for many years with the opera classes of the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar, particularly in the field of early music. He also developed extensive experience in music theatre production and festival management.

Founded in 1987, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra is one of the leading international ensembles in the field of historically informed performance practice. Under its artistic directors Cecilia Bernardini and Gottfried von der Goltz, the ensemble gives approximately 100 concerts annually on major stages around the world.

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