The members of the recorder consort B-FIVE met during their mutual studies in the studio of the recognized player and musicologist Pedro Memelsdorff at the Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya in Barcelona. Out of the enthusiasm for ensemble playing and the common interest in the repertoire for recorder consort arose the idea in 2003 to establish B-FIVE.

Conspicuous is the international character of the group. The members of B-FIVE come from Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Their individual backgrounds, the different experiences that they have been able to gather as virtuoso soloists and in numerous chamber music formations inform this ensemble’s musical versatility.
In its concerts, B-FIVE pursues the goal of offering its audience the marvelous English consort music of the sixteenth century in all its fascinating beauty, emotionality and power. In doing so, the ensemble relies not just on intensive studies of historical performance practice, but combines it with an animated and spontaneous manner of music-making.

B-FIVE additionally considers it an exciting challenge to build up a contemporary reptertoire for recorder quintet: the composers Janpieter Biesemans, Günter Kochan, Hans Stadlmair and Johannes Kretz have written for the ensemble.