Simon Höfele
Biography Simon Höfele
Simon Höfele
23, is one of the most exciting trumpeters of the up-and-coming generation.
In the season 17/18 Simon gives his debut with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, SWR Symphonieorchester, Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg, Sinfonieorchester Aachen, Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, Philharmonisches Orchester Lübeck and others, also at Bozar Brussels, Konzerthaus Berlin and important festivals such as MiTo in Milano and Torino, Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and many others. He has already made his solo debut with such orchestras as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Semyon Bychkov, Shanghai Philharmonic, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Münchener Kammerorchester and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.
In September 2017 he has been selected as BBC Radio 3 new generation artist, furthermore he won the special "U21" award at the ARD International Music Competition and the German Music Competition in 2016, and is "SWR2 New Talent” of the German public-service broadcaster SWR.
In addition to well-known trumpet repertoire ranging from Telemann, Tartini, Haydn, Hummel and Mozart to Jolivet, Arutjunjan and Zimmermann, Simon Höfele also frequently performs contemporary music. For example, in 2012, together with Reinhold Friedrich and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra conducted by Matthias Pintscher, he gave the first performance of Pintscher's double concerto for two trumpets and orchestra ("Chute d'étoiles"). In 2015, he premiered "Tangle", a work for solo trumpet and brass quintet by Nina Šenk, in Weingarten, Germany, and "Imaginary Garden" by Hope Lee at a master course run by the School of Creative and Performing Arts of the University of Calgary, Canada.
Simon Höfele also plays chamber music of every variety with great enthusiasm. His partners include the pianists Frank Dupree, Magdalena Müllerperth and Eriko Takezawa.
Other prizes and awards he has won include the first prize at the Reinhold Friedrich International Trumpet Competition in Lisbon (11/2016), two victories at the Concours Européen de Jeunes Trompettistes in Alençon/France, the first prize at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Conservatory Competition in Berlin in 2015 and various first prizes at the German youth music competition “Jugend musiziert". He holds scholarships from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben (including the Gerd Bucerius Scholarship), the Hummel-Gesellschaft in Weimar, the foundation “Jugend musiziert Niedersachsen”, the Oscar und Vera-Ritter Stiftung and the Da Ponte Stiftung Darmstadt. He has also received the Cultural Encouragement Award (Förderpreis Kultur) of the City of Darmstadt (2012), the Bruno Frey Music Prize (2013) and the encouragement award of the Mozart-Gesellschaft Wiesbaden (2016).
Born in 1994, Simon Höfele first had trumpet lessons aged seven in his home town of Darmstadt. Five years later, he became a preparatory student of Reinhold Friedrich, who took him into his trumpet class at the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule as a 14-year-old. A year later, he became a member of the German National Youth Orchestra (Bundesjugendorchester), then also of the Vienna-based Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the Orchestral Academy of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. He has also attended courses held by Ensemble Modern and German Brass, and received instruction from well-known professors such as Edward H. Tarr, Klaus Schuhwerk, Wim van Hasselt, Frits Damrow, Urban Agnas, Luis Gonzalez, Peter Lohse, Hannes Läubin, Kristian Steenstrup, Eric Aubier and Jeroen Berwaerts.
Alongside his musical projects, Simon Höfele is also active in cultural politics, and has founded the association "Kunstverlust", for which he, as a photographer, portrays people who work to support art and prevent its destruction.
