Robert Oberaigner, principal clarinettist of the Staatskapelle Dresden, has made his reputation as one of the most distinctive performers of his generation. With his focus primarily on contemporary music and historically informed interpretation, he is invited regularly to renowned international festivals (BBC Proms, Lucerne Festival, Salzburg Easter Festival) and famous concert halls (Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Cologne Philharmonic Hall, Vienna Musikverein, Salzburg Mozarteum etc.).
He also appears in a variety of chamber ensembles with such outstanding musicians as Myung-Whun Chung, Leonidas Kavakos, Nils Mönkemeyer, Christian Gerhaher, and Sol Gabetta. In the field of historically informed interpretation, he collaborates frequently with such renowned ensembles as Concerto Köln, the Dresden Festival Orchestra, and Cappella Coloniensis; he has also appeared as a soloist with the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne and the Staatskapelle Dresden.
With members of that orchestra, he initiated the project “kapelle 21”, the chief goal of which is performing, demonstrating, and interpreting music of the 20th and 21st centuries. As part of that concert series, Oberaigner has already premiered a clarinet concerto dedicated to him by the Italian composer Simone Fontanelli. In 2018 he even made his own debut as a composer in Tokyo, performing his first opus, Tränen der Colombina.
With the pianist Michael Schöch, he makes recordings for the German label Dabringhaus & Grimm. Together they have released the complete works for clarinet and piano by Max Reger and the sonatas of Johannes Brahms. On the Naxos label, he has also recorded works for clarinet by the Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg in collaboration with the conductor Michail Jurowski.
Robert Oberaigner was born in Hall in Tyrol, Austria. He studied at the Tyrol State Conservatoire under Max Bauer and later at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna under Horst Hájek and Johann Hindler. He expanded his awareness of historically informed interpretation under Eric Hoprich at The Hague, and he completed his studies at the University of Music in Lübeck under Sabine Meyer. From 2003 until 2014 he was the principal clarinettist of the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, and he made guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. Besides performing, he also leads masterclasses in Milan, Beijing, and South Tyrol.