Christoph Hartmann, Oboe

 

“Live your dreams!” this is the belief of the oboist Christoph Hartmann. The native-born Bavarian devotes himself with enthusiasm, dedication and joy to things that inspire him, and continues to realize one dream after the other.

The parents who brought up Christoph Hartmann in Landsberg am Lech, knew how to support his hobbies – music making, running and cycling. That he would choose the Oboe as a professional career was pure coincidence, and was largely due to the local music school wanting to establish an oboe class. He only tried the instrument once but it was enough to become his passion. Shortly after he studied with Georg Fischer at the Conservatory Augsburg he continued his studies with Prof. Günther Passin in Munich. Before he finished his studies Christoph Hartmann had already worked as a Solo-oboist in 1991 with the Stuttgart Philharmonic. Within the next year, he had progressed to the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic. 

From that time on Christoph Hartmann enjoyed a fulfilled life as a musician, playing in orchestral and chamber music concerts, teaching at the Herbert-von-Karajan-Academy, travelling outside of the orchestral fields as a soloist, conducting master classes and researching repertoire for his instrument, in archives and libraries.

At the point where most of his colleagues would finish their day, Christoph Hartmann’s second life begins: sport. He regularly runs marathons, he is a co-partner of the bike shop “Bikeline” in Berlin-Friedenau and has also developed his own bicycle brand: Pasculli. This brings us back to the beginning, the manuscripts of the Italian Oboe virtuoso Antonio Pasculli. These were found by Christoph Hartmann in an Italian library and prompted him to bring the forgotten music to blossom. The Operatic phrases of Antonio Pasculli, featured on the CD “Fantasia Italiana” has had tremendous success and has been received with both critical and public acclaim. This CD had been released by EMI as a world premiere.

Following his distinctive love for chamber music, Christoph Hartmann has invited since 1999 music colleagues to his hometown to participate in the small but exclusive festival: Landsberger Sommermusiken, a festival which he founded. The concept of making music on a professional level but in a relaxed atmosphere is so convincing that the musicians have returned for the past ten years to this festival. Out of this grew a regular ensemble, namely the ‘Ensemble Berlin, which now tours internationally and can be heard playing with Christoph Hartmann on his CD ‘Bella Napoli’. in combination with the Ensemble Berlin there came out more recordings, like the CD "Virtuoso", "Le tombeau de Couperin" and "Clair de Lune"