Michael Popp
 

Michael Popp studied historical performance practice with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, among other subjects, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

In 1985, together with Sigrid Hausen and Ernst Schwindl, he co-founded the medieval music ensemble ESTAMPIE, who have since won acclaim with 10 CDs, a DVD, a host of radio and television recordings, and many concerts in Germany and abroad. Time and again ESTAMPIE have explored the many facets of Early Music, collaborating with Mongolian and Central Asian musicians on a project called "Marco Polo", for instance, or with Arab and Spanish musicians on the "al Andaluz" project, whose second album is currently in the making.

In 1991 Michael Popp joined the band "Deine Lakaien", with whom he played and toured widely for ten years. In 1993 he co-founded the electro-medieval group Qntal, who fuse these two disparate genres in an intelligent and experimental way.

Consistently interdisciplinary in his approach, Popp has also collaborated on a great many theatre, dance and performance art projects. His work to date with the ESTAMPIE ensemble includes Ordo virtutum (1991), Ludus Danielis (1996), Materia Musica (1998), Zeitenwende (2001), Der Erwählte (“The Holy Sinner”) after Thomas Mann (2004) and music for the theater productions of Krabat (1997) and Animal Farm (1999).

Popp has also worked as a theater musician and composer: at the Munich Residenztheater (Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (English title: The Hunchback of Notre Dame)), the Munich Kammerspiele (Der Arme Heinrich (“Poor Henry”), Vienna’s Burgtheater (Titus Andronicus), and in Basle (Parzival after the medieval epic by Wolfram von Eschenbach), as well as with various independent experimental theater companies.