Marin Marais (1656-1728): Le Labyrinthe

Since winning the prize for Best Individual Performer at the 1998 Van Wassenaer Competition for Early Music in Den Haag, Cassandra Luckhardt has established an international reputation as soloist, chamber and orchestral musician and teacher on both cello and viola da gamba. In performance, Cassandra has played and recorded as principal cello and gamba with The Academy of Ancient Music, Il Complesso Barocco, Concerto Copenhagen and the King’s Consort. Her reputation as a sensitive and impassioned interpreter of the Passions by Bach is verified by her solo performances with orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony and the Residence Orchestra.

As a chamber musician, Cassandra is in equally high demand, demonstrating her flexibility as soloist with chamber groups all over the world. She has performed all over Europe as well as in China, Australia, Japan, Russia, Israel, the U.S. and throughout her adopted home of The Netherlands. She is a founding member of the The Horizon Ensemble, currently in residence at the English Church in Amsterdam, and is a regular member of Camerata Trajectina, Le Nuove Musiche and the Apollo Ensemble, with whom she has performed in venues as diverse as the Morgan Library in New York City, the Kennedy Center and the Sydney Festival (AUS). 

Cassandra's recording with Musica ad Rhenum of the Suites for viola da gamba as part of the complete chamber music of Francois Couperin has been highly acclaimed as “magnificent and indispensable” and “...a particular highlight.” Her recording of the Bach Sonatas for Viola da Gamba exhibits “a give and take full of playfulness, sensitivity, musicality and collegiality” as well as “a beautiful performance which leaves no wish unfulfilled.”

Cassandra received her Bachelor of Music and her Bachelor of Arts degrees cum laude from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1992 and her Master of Music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory in 1994. She moved to Paris in 1994 to study at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique under the auspices of a Harriet Hale Woolley grant, awarded that year to only three other artists in the United States. In 1996, she received third prize at the Early Music Competition for Ensembles in Bruges and in 1999 won the Public Prize at the Utrecht Early Music Festival. In 2001, Cassandra finished her studies at the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag, graduating with degrees on both viola da gamba and baroque cello.

Cassandra plays a cello built by Sebastian Kloz, Mittenwald ca. 1760 and an 18th-century gamba by an unknown builder.