Paul J.W. Schauenburg was born in 1998 in Munich, Germany. He began learning to play the recorder at the age of six. From a young age, Paul learned not just to play the recorder, but also similar instruments such as the tabor pipe. In his teenage years, this led to him playing traditional Irish music on tin whistle and recorder in a local Irish pub. This jumpstarted his interest in playing by ear and thinking quickly in music.
From 2016 to 2024, he built on this eclectic foundation in his studies in the recorder department of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam under main subject professor Jorge Isaac and regular guest professor Erik Bosgraaf, as well as María Martínez Ayerza and Hester Groenleer. During his studies, he has also taken classes from Daniël Brüggen, Antonio Politano, Michael Form, Dorothee Oberlinger, and others. The broad curriculum of the department, which places equal emphasis on contemporary and early music, has been a fruitful place for Paul to explore his love of various musical styles, especially minimal and post-minimal music, electronic music, and his love for repetition and patterns in music from all eras.
Paul followed composition lessons during his studies, at first for two years with Meriç Artaç, and subsequently for three more years with Jorrit Tamminga. His compositions are oriented towards post-minimalism, and influenced by various types of electronic music, ranging from experimental music to techno and house. Other influences include early music, Björk, and Javanese gamelan music. At the same time, he further developed his abilities to make use of computer programming in music. He is mainly working with the programming language SuperCollider, and his composition teacher Jorrit Tamminga has helped him improve his skills and experience in this and other programs.
Since 2022, Paul plays as part of The Royal Wind Music, a large ensemble of recorder players specialized in renaissance consort music. Paul and Kristy van Dijk, who formed ensemble “Le Réveil” from 2018 to 2021 together with Gabriel Belkheiri, are currently working on a new collaboration in a wide range of repertoire, including but not limited to new music, electronics, and performing both players’ original compositions. Besides his activities as a recorder player and composer, Paul plays Javanese gamelan music with ensemble Widosari. This has also led to his involvement in Sinta Wullur and Maarten Bauer’s project “Global Gongs”, and to Paul being the ensemble leader of Global Gongs’ upcoming project “De Stille Kracht 3.0”.