The desire to play chamber music with friends and a project at the Karlsruhe University of Music were the starting points for Studio 16. The young ensemble was founded in spring 2023 at the suggestion of Rainer Johannsen, who has been the ensemble's coach since its inception. He is passing on his decades of experience in the field of early music – including long-standing memberships with Musica Antiqua Köln, Reinhard Goebel and La Petite Bande, Sigiswald Kuijken – and helping the ensemble to develop its own unique profile. The four members, Mai Johannsen (oboe), Elisabeth Zimmermann (violin), Merle Riemann (cello) and Georg Schäfer (harpsichord) are between 17 and 19 years old and most of them are still at school, the music grammar school of the Helmholtz-Gymnasium in Karlsruhe. Some of them are in the pre-college programme at the music academies in Karlsruhe and Munich and have won numerous first and second prizes in the Jugend musiziert competition. All four have been playing together in various orchestras for several years, most notably the Landesjugendbarockorchester Baden-Württemberg. In January 2024, Studio 16 won first prize at the Handel Youth Competition of the Handel Society in Karlsruhe, after some of the four had already won first prizes there in previous years. At the International Heinrich Schmelzer Competition as part of the International Baroque Days at Melk Abbey in Austria in May 2024, they won a special prize for young talent. This includes an invitation to perform their own chamber concert at the Festival of Early Music in Innsbruck in August 2025. At the 2025 National Youth Music Competition, Studio 16 was awarded first prize with the highest score. In February 2025, the ensemble gave an acclaimed concert at the International Handel Festival in Karlsruhe. In addition to their training on modern and historical instruments, Mai, Elisabeth, Merle and Georg are keen to play chamber music on a professional level with Baroque instruments. Aware of their youth and thus their unique role among Baroque ensembles, their musical guiding principles are liveliness, enthusiasm and an energetic style all their own. With a slightly modified line-up – viola instead of harpsichord – Studio 16 also plays modern instruments, including Mozart's Oboe Quartet.