Barbara Maria Willi studied harpsichord performance in Freiburg and Strasbourg, then she studied harpsichord/fortepiano with Kenneth Gilbert and early music performance practice with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1995 she won the prestigious Prix d’encouragement-special mention at the harpsichord competition in Bruges. As a harpsichordist and interpreter on the fortepiano, she has collaborated with artists including Magdalena Kožená, Sergio Azzolini, Martina Janková, Jana Boušková, Annegret Siedel, Erich Höbarth, Eric Hoeprich, Thierry Grégoire and Jiří Bárta. In 2005 Barbara Maria Willi was a member of the jury of the Prague Spring International Harpsichord Competition. She is the programming director of the important festival Concentus Moraviae, and together with the Central European Music Agency she has founded a cycle of early music concerts in Brno with the title Barbara Maria Willi Presents… In 2002 she earned her doctorate at the School of Liberal Arts of Masaryk University in Brno for her dissertation On the Style of Thoroughbass in the 17th Century. At present she is an instructor at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno, where she has established and leads her own harpsichord studio.
