Reinhard Goebel

Reinhard Goebel, who was born in Siegen in 1952, started his career as a violinist and specialized in early music from the very beginning. He studied first with Franzjosef
Maier, concertmaster of the Collegium Aureum, and subsequently at the Cologne Musikhochschule and with Saschko Gawriloff at the Folkwangschule in Essen; at the same time, he completed a degree in musicology at the University of Cologne. In 1973 Goebel founded Musica Antiqua Köln, which he led for 33 years, first as concertmaster, then as conductor. He made recordings with this ensemble that became benchmarks and earned a reputation as one of the leading figures in the historically informed performance practice realm. Goebel was compelled to give up playing the violin in 2006 because of a focal dystonia and has since concentrated entirely on his work on the podium. To date, he has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and numerous German radio orchestras; he has also led opera productions at the Hanover Staatsoper, Theater St. Gallen, National Theater Weimar, Theater Freiburg, and the National Theater Mannheim. In 2018, the Berliner Barock Solisten appointed him their artistic director. Goebel has devoted himself intensively over the last two years to the project “Beethoven’s World,” with which he explores unknown works by the composer and relates them to the music of his contemporaries. Five CDs containing seven premiere recordings have been produced as a result of this project. Goebel has taught historical performance practice at the Salzburg Mozarteum since 2010. In recognition of his musical achievements, the City of Magdeburg awarded him the Telemann Prize in 2002; Leipzig honored him with the Bach Medal in 2017. Goebel is also the recipient of North Rhine-Westphalia’s State Prize.

July 2021