Bernhard Zachhuber, clarinet

Bernhard Zachhuber was born in Linz in 1965. From 1983, he studied concert clarinet with Peter Schmidl and Johann Hindler at the University of Music in Vienna. Bernhard Zachhuber was awarded a diploma in instrumental performance (Appreciation Award by the Ministry of Education and Arts) and received a degree in Instrumental Education in 1990. He also took part in a master class conducted by Hans Deinzer. His career as a professional musician took off with a series of intense experiences with various orchestras. His involvement with Ensemble Aktuell, a symphony orchestra affiliated to the high school in Linz, brought about his first encounter with Franz Welser Möst; this was followed by an invitation to several tours with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, which had just been founded by Claudio Abbado, and a phase, lasting several years, as guest musician of the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera as well as the Vienna Philharmonic where he was able to work with a number of exceptional conductors. His interest in contemporary composers which are still active – or at any rate not long deceased – had already been established for some time; it was further kindled by his participation in performances of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten at the Vienna State Opera and Messiaen’s Saint Francoise d’Assise at the Salzburg Festival as well as repeated engagements with die reihe and the Ensemble XXth Century, before he became a member of Klangforum Wien in 1994. Apart from forays into the classical realm such as the chamber music festival Lockenhaus or the Mozartwoche, both in Salzburg and in Tokyo, where his performances included works like Mozart’s serenades for winds, Schubert’s octet or the sonatas and clarinet quintet by Brahms, Klangforum Wien has become his artistic “native country”. Here, Bernhard Zachhuber has worked with artists of the most diverse fields – such as Christoph Marthaler in productions of Pierrot Lunaire and Quatuor pour la fin du tempspresented at the Salzburg Festival and at the Guggenheim-Foundation, New York; but also with choreographer Meg Stuart, and filmmaker Bady Mink from Luxembourg, with whom he conceived the production Free Radicals, which combines miniatures both in film and music and was shown in Venice, Hamburg, Vienna, Brussels, Luxembourg and New York. In 2008 he started to teach as part of the professorial appointment of the whole ensemble at the University of Music, Graz, and at the summer academy Vienna – Prague – Budapest, passing on some of the special techniques and practices he has acquired over the years.