Best known for his work in the early music ensemble Sequentia, Germany's Norbert Rodenkirchen plays flutes ranging from ancient bone instruments to the Baroque transverse flute. Rodenkirchen has also been active as an accompanist and in the fields of improvisation, film, and theater composition, concert booking, and teaching. Rodenkirchen was born in 1962 in Cologne, Germany (one of whose major districts is named Rodenkirchen), and his education and career have remained centered on that city. He studied both modern and Baroque flute at the Musikhochschule Köln, where his teachers included Günther Hoeller and Hans-Martin Müller. He joined Sequentia in 1996 and was featured prominently on the group's speculative reconstructions of very early music, playing a variety of ancient flutes. He has also performed with the French ensemble Dialogos, touring with that group to festivals around Europe. Rodenkirchen also organized his own group, Candens Lilium, which has specialized in the medieval music of the Rhineland region. In Cologne he has served as artistic director of a medieval series called Schnütgen Konzerte at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. He has composed music for programs on the WDR (West German Radio) network and organized festival and conservatory workshops on medieval music performance as far afield as Salzburg, Austria, Basel, Switzerland, and Vancouver, British Columbia. Beginning in the 2000s, Rodenkirchen has been active in Cologne's improvisation scene, often pursuing what he has called experimental archaic music. His recordings comprise four main groups. First are the recordings of Sequentia, on which he has often played an important role. Second are his own medieval music programs -- Tibia ex tempore (medieval flute meditations), Hameln Anno 1284 (pertaining to the Pied Piper of Hamelin), and, new in 2018, Medieval Echoes, featuring contemplative flute music from Notker Balbulus to Guillaume de Machaut. Third are recordings of composed music such as the Lamentationes Jeremiae of English Renaissance composer John Tuder, on which he teamed with mezzo soprano Maria Jonas. Finally, Rodenkirchen has recorded with contemporary improvising musicians such as multi-instrumentalist Robbie Lee and bassist James Ilgenfritz, with whom he released the 2018 album Opalescence. ~ James Manheim, Rovi