Marie Verstraete started playing the recorder at the age of twelve under the guidance of Joris Van Goethem. She continued her studies with Bart Spanhove and Bart Coen at the Lemmensinstituut in Leuven, Belgium, graduating with a Bachelor of Music in 2007 and a Master of Music with teacher’s diploma in 2009 magna cum laude. In 2010, she graduated summa cum laude with a Master of Medieval and Renaissance Music from the Institut für Alte Musik at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen, Germany, under the direction of Kees Boeke and Claudia Caffagni. She studied renaissance viol with Lorenz Duftschmid in Trossingen, vielle at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Randall Cook and is currently being coached privately by Claudia Pasetto for vielle (Verona). At the same time she is completing her M.A. in Musicology, with emphasis on Early Music, with Prof. Dr. Nicole Schwindt in Trossingen.

Throughout her studies, she has attendedmasterclasses with Pierre Hamon, Fumiharu Yoshimine, Ryohei Hirose, Paul Leenhouts, Walter Van Hauwe, Marion Verbruggen, Hugo Reyne, Gerd Lünenbürger, and Barry Green for recorder and contemporary music and with Pedro Memelsdorff, Claudia Caffagni, Maurice Van Lieshout, Valerie Horst, and Paul Van Nevel for late medieval music. She is a founding member of the Flemish recorder trio Aquil’AlterA and of the ensembles Pentagonale and Emyolia, both specializing in late medieval music. She has performed concerts all over Europe with these and several other ensembles such as the Flanders Recorder Quartet, L’estro armonico (Sergio Azzolini), and Armonico Tributo Austria (Lorenz Duftschmid).

Marie is both a recorder and chamber music teacher in music schools in Germany and at the recorder festival Blokfluitdagen in Mechelen (Belgium), as well as a tutor for musicology at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen.

Marie wishes to share her fascination for Early Music, especially late medieval music and its cultural background, by means of a challenging exchange between performance, teaching and research.