In the 17^th and 18^th centuries Hamburg emerged as one of the most influential centres of Protestant church music. While the boys’ choruses of Dresden and Leipzig took on interregional significance, the five main churches in Hamburg became famous first and foremost for their magnificent organs and their outstanding organists. Until 1943 the Hauptkirche Sankt Katharinen – one of Hamburg’s five principal churches – was home to old Hamburg’s most famous organ which Johann Sebastian Bach called “a superb instrument in every detail” in 1720 at his legendary concert. Today, this organ has been fully restored to its original state using surviving historic pipes.

As the Music Director of the Hauptkirche Sankt Katharinen, Andreas Fischer upholds the organ music traditions dating back to the Middle Ages. As well as performing the organ during divine worship and at concerts, Andreas Fischer also conducts the church’s large chorus. Since his appointment in 1994, the musician and this chorus have performed many significant choral works including every oratorio and most cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach in addition to such works as Beethoven’s Missa solemnis and the Requiems by Mozart, Verdi and Britten.

Andreas Fischer studied at the Hochschule fьr Musik und Theater in Munich, specialising in church music, organ and conducting. His teachers included Franz Lehrndorfer (organ), Gitti Pirner (piano), Roderich Kreile (choral conducting) and Hanns-Martin Schneidt (symphony conducting), whose assistant he was at the Munich Bach Choir and the Hochschule fьr Musik from 1989 to 1993. In 1997 Andreas Fischer won 3^rd prize at the Gottfried Silbermann Organ Competition in Freiburg. The musician has toured throughout Germany and abroad, performing the harpsichord and the organ. Fischer has appeared on numerous occasions with Hamburg’s Camerata orchestra under Max Pommer. As an organist he frequently tours with the Hamburger Symphoniker, collaborating with such conductors as Jeffrey Tate, Muhai Tang and Andrei Boreiko.

2005 saw the release of a recording of works by Bach, Buxtehude, Scheidemann and Reincken performed by Andreas Fischer on the Silbermann organ in Freiburg. A recording of works by Sweelinck, Scheidemann, Reincken, Bach and Hцller performed on the restored organ of the Hauptkirche Sankt Katharinen came in 2009.