Born in Weingarten / Baden, Reinhold Friedrich has been a prolific performer on major stages around the world since his success at the ARD International Music Competition in 1986. Strongly influenced by his teachers Edward H. Tarr (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel) and Pierre Thibaud (Conservatoire Superieure de Musique Paris), he has always considered that old and new music belong together. The re-discovery of forgotten works of the Romantic period and the classical modern era lie particularly close to his heart, alongside his passion for and patronage of avant-garde music.
He gave his debut performance at the Berliner Festwochen with “Sequenza X” by Luciano Berio, closely followed by his first appearance as a soloist at the Musikverein in Vienna with the Vienna Academy under Martin Haselböck, playing the trumpet concerto by Joseph Haydn on the historic keyed trumpet. His involvement with historical performance practice has brought him together with orchestras such as the Orchestre des Champs-Elysees, La Stagione Frankfurt, Kammerorchester Basel, L’arte del mondo, Concerto Melante, the Berliner Barock Solisten as well as the Cappella Andrea Barca under Sir András Schiff. The focus of these collaborations was often the 2nd Brandenburg Concerto by J.S. Bach, of which Friedrich is one of the world’s premier exponents.
Reinhold Friedrich has long been in the vanguard of developing and expanding the repertoire of his instrument. He has commissioned and premiered a large number of significant works including pieces by Wolfgang Rihm, Carola Bauckholt, Luciano Berio, Edison Denissov, Peter Eötvös, Hans Werner Henze, Adriana Hölszky, Nicolaus A. Huber, Luca Lombardi, Benedict Mason, Sir Peter Maxwell Davis, Hilda Parèdes, Matthias Pintscher, Jan Rääts, Rebecca Saunders, Nina Šenk, Enjott Schneider, Daniel Schnyder, Gerhard Stäbler, Eino Tamberg, Caspar Johannes Walter, Christian Wolff, and Benjamin Yusopov. The solo concerti “Eirene” by Herbert Willi (Wergo) and “Nobody knows de trouble I see” by Bernd Alois Zimmermann form an important part of his broad repertoire. The CD recording of the Zimmermann won an ECHO Klassik in 1994.
As a soloist, Reinhold Friedrich has performed with ensembles such as the Bamberger and Wiener Symphoniker, the Staatsoper Berlin and Stuttgart, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Frankfurt Museum Orchester, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Prague, the orchestra of the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires and all German radio symphony orchestras; conducted amongst others by Semyon Bychkov, Dennis Russell Davies, Peter Eötvös, Vladimir Fedossejev, Adam Fischer, Michael Gielen, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Manfred Honeck, Eliahu Inbal, Krystjan and Neeme Järvi, Dmitri Kitaenko, Sir Neville Marriner, Ingo Metzmacher, Andris Nelsons, Jonathan Nott, Kazushi Ono, Matthias Pintscher, Trevor Pinnock, Stanislav Skrowaczewski, and Hans Zender.
From 1983 to 1999 Reinhold Friedrich held the position of solo trumpeter at the Radio Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt. In 2003, Claudio Abbado appointed him permanent solo trumpeter of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which has been conducted by Riccardo Chailly since 2017. Reinhold Friedrich is also the Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra Brass Ensemble. Present chamber music partners are Thomas Duis, Bernd Glemser, and Eriko Takezawa (piano), Robyn Schulkowsky (percussion), Iveta Apkalna, Sebastian Küchler-Blessing, Martin Lücker, and Christian Schmitt (organ).
Reinhold Friedrich is a professor of trumpet at Karlsruhe University of Music, a sought-after lecturer for master classes, honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Escuela Superior de Musica REINA SOFIA in Madrid and also in Hiroshima, Japan. His former students have won in almost all major international competitions and hold leading positions or professorships in Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro and throughout Europe.
Reinhold Friedrich was awarded another ECHO Klassik for the recording of the “Russian Trumpet Concertos” (MDG) with Göttinger Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph-Mathias Mueller. Numerous other CD recordings document his multifaceted work, including the first recording of the trumpet concerto “Pieta” by Christian Jost (Coviello) and the recording of the second Brandenburg Concerto (Sony) with the Berlin Baroque Soloists under Reinhard Goebel, which won the OPUS Classical price of 2018. A recording of Stravinsky’s L’histoire du Soldat (with Isabelle Faust) at the Wigmore Hall London is in the planning stage.
Upcoming concerts will lead him to the Elbphilharmonie (Bernd Alois Zimmermann concerto), the Osaka Century Symphony Orchestra and the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra (concerto by Toshio Hosokawa), to Siberia (UA “Spirit of Siberia” by Enjott Schneider), to the National Orchestra Yerevan (concerto by Ilya Chakov), to Australia with Wolfgang Rihm’s trumpet concerto “Marsyas”, to the Lucerne Academy Orchestra under the direction of George Benjamin, with Nuria Rial at the Haendel-Festspiele in Halle, with the Berliner Barock Solisten under Reinhard Goebel in Lutry and Versailles. He will also be performing in Katowice, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Geneva, Groningen, Hamburg, Bremen, Freiburg, Dusseldorf, Nuremberg, Lyon, Armenia, Korea and Taiwan.
