Chris Berensen is a freelance performer of early keyboard instruments. He has worked intimately with baroque music since he was fifteen years old, at which age he had his own concerto grosso prepared and recorded by the British-based ensemble Florilegium as the result of a competition he had won.

He received a University Postgraduate Award scholarship in 2007 and 2008 whilst studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under the supervision of Dr. Alan Maddox, Philip Swanton and Dr. Neal Peres da Costa, and has completed a Master's Degree at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” where he studied with Nicholas Parle and Tobias Schade.

Notable ensembles he has performed with include the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Leipziger Concert, the Sächsischen Barockorchester, the Neuen Bachischen Collegium Musicum, Merseburger Hofmusik, the Mendelssohn Kammerorchester Leipzig, Les Matelots the Marais Project and Salut! Baroque. He has also participated in masterclasses with such celebrated early music personalities as Jordi Savall, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Wieland and Barthold Kuijken, Eduardo Eguez, and Genevieve Lacey.

One reviewer has written “Berensen’s playing throughout was a revelation. The harpsichord, which can so often come across as one-dimensional in concert performance, yielded a whole range of tones and textures. Berensen’s energy and commitment to the music was at all times elevating essentially supportive musical writing into surprisingly substantial artistic dialogue.” (4th April 2008 TimeOut Sydney).

In 2012 he founded the Rosentaler Barock Ensemble, which is regularly invited to perform at festivals in central Germany, and in 2014 premiered a hitherto unknown english opera, "The Honour of Arbaces", by Lady Mary Stuart, the Countess of Bute. 

With Violinist Leopold Nicolaus and recorder player and bassoonist Claudius Kamp, he has performed since 2014 with Tempora Felicia. an ensemble dedicated to the chamber music of the early seventeenth century. Tempora Felicia won the second prize and audience prize at the International Marini Competition in 2014. Together, Leopold and Chris took the 2015 West-German Radio Prize at the H.I.F. Biber Competition in St. Florian, Austria. 

Chris is also an official accompanist to the international Bach Competition in Leipzig, and until 2015 he was harpsichord teacher and repetiteur at the City Conservatorium of Halle „Georg Friedrich Händel“, and the Kleinmachnow Regional Music School, „Engelbert Humperdinck“ in Berlin.

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