Andreas Ottensamer has captured audiences and critics alike with his distinct musicianship and versatility as clarinetist, artistic director and conductor.

Ottensamer is considered one of the leading instrumentalists of our time and performs as a clarinet soloist with the most renowned orchestras and conductors in the world’s great concert halls. He is a regular guest artist at festivals such as the Salzburger Festspiele, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival and the Festival de Pâques d’Aix en Provence.

Since the 2020/21 season, Ottensamer has taken the podium as a conductor and is already much sought after. In 2021 he gave his debut with the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and has been awarded the Neeme Järvi Prize of the Gstaad Festival Conducting Academy.

In Summer 2022 he made a hugely successful Asian conducting debut with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Aichi Chamber Orchestra in Nagoya and with Seoul’s KBS Symphony Orchestra. Further conducting engagements this season include appearances with the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, the Prag Philharmonia, the Orquestra Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra and the Real Philharmonia Galicia.

Ottensamer is artistic director of the Bürgenstock Festival in Switzerland. His artistic partnerships as a chamber musician include work with Yuja Wang, Seong-Jin Cho, Lisa Batiashvili, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Phillippe Jaroussky, Gautier Capuçon and Sol Gabetta.

Andreas Ottensamer has an exclusive recording partnership with Deutsche Grammophon since 2013, making him the first ever clarinetist on the Yellow Label. For his album Blue Hour, featuring works of Weber, Mendelssohn and Brahms, he partnered with the Berlin Philharmonic under Mariss Jansons and received his second Opus Klassik award as “Instrumentalist of the year”. Together with Yuja Wang and Gautier Capucon he has recorded Brahms’ clarinet trio, released with DG in September 2022.

Andreas Ottensamer was born in 1989 in Vienna. He comes from an Austro-Hungarian family of musicians and was drawn to music early, receiving his first piano lessons when he was four. At the age of ten he began studying cello at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, then changed to the clarinet in 2003.

In 2009 he interrupted his Harvard undergraduate studies to become a scholar of the Orchestra Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Ottensamer has been studying conducting with Professor Nicolas Pasquet in Weimar and taken masterclasses with Professor Johannes Schlaefli and Jaap van Zweden.

Since March 2011, Ottensamer has held the position of principal clarinetist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.