Silke Reichmann de Salas

Silke Reichmann de Salas – hurdy-gurdy, flute, (percussion, vocal) – grew up in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. She learned to play flute and the hurdy-gurdy as a teenager and took part in workshops for renaissance music with cornett, recorder and voice. (Her father Kurt Reichmann is the best known hurdy-gurdy maker/luthier in Germany, her mother Heinke Reichmann used to play with the Frankfurter Renaissance Ensemble.) During a student exchange in Calgary, Canada, she also took part in a jazz choir.

For the beginning years she has dedicated herself to European (mainly French, German) traditional and comtemporary folk music and traditional dances. She was a musician and dance guide in the hurdy-gurdy group “Die Hummel” (the bumble-bee). 1985 she co-founded the band “Trio Grande”, who first introduced Arabic, Asian, and African elements into their idiosyncratic, new European folk music. In 1986 she took part in the sound recordings for the movie “Der Name der Rose” (Regie: Jean-Jacques Annaud).

In 1991 she was (together with her collegue from Trio Grande, Hans Lang) awarded the first price of the hurdy-gurdy competition “catégorie double” at the international Festival “Les Maîtres Sonneurs” in St. Chartier, France. She was also member of the first hurdy-gurdy masterclass with Valentin Clastrier in France. During the late 90s she took part in the national hurdy-gurdy musictheatre project “Ensemble Surradial”.

Inspired by the guest musicians of Trio Grande´s latest album “PiloPao”, Amie Jammeh and Yusupha Kuyateh from The Gambia, she developed her special interest in Westafrican music. She had already been taking lessons in Westafrican percussion and dance. Meanwhile she also played with the band “Touramakang”, founded by Momo Papis Traoré from Mali.

Through a cooperation with the songwriter and “Capoeira Angola” master Rogerio Soares Peixoto, she got in touch with Brasilian music (as a flute player). In 1998, she got to know the Brasilian singer and percussionist Catarina de Paula Borba during a joined concert tour through Skandinavia with the world music project “Caleidoscope”. Today, they play together in the Brasilian-German female Duo “Maritaca”.

Since the hurdy-gurdy is a drone instrument, Silke remains especially interested in drone music throughout the world. Furthermore she has studied atonal improvisation for one semester at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin with Natalia Siedler. Study trips and concert tours have lead Silke to New York (USA), Bakau (The Gambia) and La Habana (Cuba).

With the hurdy-gurdy Silke has become an internationally reknown musician. Since 2015 she´s teaching at Global Music School Berlin, Germany.