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Håkan Hardenberger

About this Artist

HÅKAN HARDENBERGER was born in Malmö, Sweden in 1961. At the age of eight he began studying the trumpet with Bo Nilsson in Malmö. He continued at the Paris Conservatoire under Pierre Thibaud and with Thomas Stevens in Los Angeles. He very quickly became recognized as a virtuoso on his instrument, capable of a unique range of sound and expression. Subsequently he was invited to play as a soloist with major symphony orchestras all over the world. Hardenberger has collaborated with many of the major conductors and managed to overcome the resistance prevailing against such an unusual solo instrument. Hardenberger is also a regular guest at the major European music festivals such as Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Schleswig-Holstein, and others.

Håkan Hardenberger has attracted the interest of major composers of our time, such as Henze, Takemitsu, Ligeti, Pärt, and HK Gruber, broadening the trumpet repertoire considerably. His repertoire list contains a great number of trumpet works written specially for him.

Hardenberger, who lives in an old farm house in the plains of Southern Sweden with his wife and two sons, spends the greater part of his time concertizing all over the world. The summer of 1999 was busy with a number of prominent Scandinavian festivals and concluded with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York and Tokyo. It also saw the premiere of the trumpet concerto by HK Gruber with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi at the London Proms. The concerto was extremely well received by press and audience alike. Hardenberger is presenting further performances of this new work with the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Vienna Musikverein and with the Danish Radio Orchestra. The German premiere is also in the planning.

Another new addition to the trumpet repertoire, the concerto by the Swede Rolf Martinsson, had enormous success at the world premiere with the Göteborg Symphony Orchestra both in Göteborg and in Birmingham. The trumpet concerti by Daniel Börtz and Jan Sandström are continuing to attract program planners. Another contemporary highlight of the trumpet repertoire is the Trumpet Concerto by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, which Håkan Hardenberger is playing this season with other orchestras in addition to these concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Ingo Metzmacher.

In addition to returning to the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, he will also be a guest artist with the Dresden Philharmonic, with the Orchestra of the Komische Oper in Berlin, and with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, and will tour Germany with the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra. He also visits Paris and joins the London Symphony and Myung-Whun Chung. Hardenberger is also keenly interested in chamber music, performing often in various combinations. He has made a number of recordings, mainly for Philips, but also on EMI and other labels. This season Hardenberger tours Japan with a recital program for trumpet and organ with organist Simon Preston. This duo will make their second recording together, for BIS.

Håkan Hardenberger appears regularly in masterclasses, notably in Malmö and as Prince Consort Professor at the Royal College of Music in London.

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