Saskia Coolen is a Dutch recorder player who studied at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam with Kees Boeke and Walter van Hauwe. In addition to her recorder studies, she specialized in viola da gamba and studied musicology at Utrecht University. For many years she was a member of La Fontegara Amsterdam and has performed with leading early music ensembles such as the Netherlands Bach Society, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, The King’s Consort, Tragicomedia, and the Radio Chamber Philharmonic.
She is a core member of Camerata Trajectina, an ensemble dedicated to Dutch music from the Middle Ages to the Golden Age, which has released around 30 CDs and performs frequently both in the Netherlands and abroad. In 1994 she founded the ensemble Senario, focusing on Baroque chamber music with a central role for the recorder. From 2004 to 2014 she was a member of the Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam, an ensemble known for combining early and contemporary music with innovative music theatre productions for children, often collaborating with actors, directors, composers, and improvisers.
Through her own foundation, Recorders, she has created several music theatre productions. Coolen has made numerous recordings for the Globe label, including the unique project Recorders Recorded, performed on a historical collection of 18th-century recorders from the Hague Municipal Museum. Together with carillon player Arie Abbenes she regularly performs programmes for the striking combination of recorder and carillon, also released on CD.
Alongside her performing career, Saskia Coolen has been active for many years as a principal teacher at the conservatories of Hilversum and Amsterdam. She gives masterclasses and courses worldwide, particularly in the United States. A central thread in her work is her ongoing research into historical improvisation, and she regularly teaches diminutions and ornamentation at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Utrecht Conservatory.
