Simon Höfele
Trumpet
Trumpet
Biography
Simon Höfele is the winner of the most important German classical music prize, OPUS KLASSIK 2020, and within a short space of time has established himself internationally as one of the most successful trumpet players of the young generation. As a soloist, he has already played with many leading orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Bern Symphony Orchestra, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, SWR Symphonieorchester, MDR Sinfonieorchester (MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra), NDR Radiophilharmonie, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Stuttgarter and Duisburger Philharmoniker, Staatskapelle Halle, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne among others.
He has already given guest recitals in the Wigmore Hall in London, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, in L’Auditori in Barcelona, the Müpa Budapest, the Philharmonie Luxembourg, the Bozar in Brussels, in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, in the Konzerthaus Berlin, in the Prinzregententheater and Herkulessaal in Munich, in the Konzerthaus Dortmund, at the Cheltenham Music Festival, the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, the MITO Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the MDR Musiksommer and the Grafenegg Festival.
Simon Höfele has worked or still works with conductors such as Ryan Bancroft, Joseph Bastian, Semyon Bychkov, Sylvain Cambreling, Alpesh Chauhan, Jonathan Cohen, Dennis Russell Davies, Jan Willem de Vriend, Kevin John Edusei, Ben Gernon, Andrew Gourlay, Jonathon Heyward, Pietari Inkinen, Julia Jones, Vladimir Jurowski, Roland Kluttig, Joana Mallwitz, Andrew Manze, Enrico Onofri, Matthias Pintscher, Clemens Schuldt, Steven Sloane, Markus Stenz, Valentin Uryupin, Mario Venzago, Lorenzo Viotti, Duncan Ward, Kahchun Wong and many others.
Simon is the 2024/25 Artist in Residence of the Jenaer Philharmonie giving several performances across the season, which also sees him make his debut with Tapiola Sinfonietta under Ryan Bancroft and return to Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Stuttgarter Philharmoniker.
Simon Höfele is an equally enthusiastic performer of chamber music in a wide variety of combinations. His partners include the pianists Elisabeth Brauß and Frank Dupree and the composer and pianist Kaan Bulak.
Simon Höfele is signed to Berlin Classics as an exclusive artist. His album “Standards” with the trumpet concertos of Haydn, Hummel, Arutjunjan and Copland, which was recorded with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Duncan Ward and released in early 2020, was acclaimed by music critics and awarded the OPUS KLASSIK 2020 prize as “concert recording of the year.” The album “New Standards”, featuring classic recital pieces by Hindemith, Honegger, Francaix and Enescu, among others, which was released in spring 2021 and his latest album “Nobody Knows” (05/2023), with contemporary works for trumpet and orchestra, were also met with the highest praise from reviewers and concert organisers.
For the recent album “No clouds in Haraz” (release 29.3.24), he collabes with Kaan Bulak, who merges styles in his compositions, incorporating and combining influences from the Middle East and contemporary music with the electronic sound language of Berlin.
Since July 2023, Simon Höfele has been the host of the WDR3 podcast KLASSIK CRUSH, in which he talks every fortnight with other young artists about music, their lives as musicians and other topics that concern them and the podcast’s young target group. In addition to his musical projects, he is also involved in cultural politics and had founded the association “Kunstverlust” (Art Loss), for which he had portrayed people as a photographer who are actively committed to the preservation of art and culture.
He teaches as a “Visiting Artist” at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and gives various master classes.
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