Alexei Tkachuk

Principal bassoon

Alexei Tkachuk was born in Kiev. He spent six years at the city’s Special Music School learning the violin as his main subject, until he discovered a love for the bassoon, thanks to Prof. Yuri Dondakov. He then studied at Kiev’s Tchaikovsky Conservatory under Prof. Vladimir Apatski. The early highlight of his solo career was winning third prize at the International Markneukirchen Instrumental Competition in 1990. There, he was noticed by the solo bassoon of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Prof. Günter Piesk, who invited him to pursue advanced studies at Berlin’s University of the Arts. Alexei Tkachuk was still a student there when he won first prize at the Minsk International Bassoon Competition, and after obtaining his concert diploma he was accepted into the Berliner Philharmoniker Orchestral Academy.

From 1995 to 1997 he was solo bassoon in the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and then a founding member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, where he was solo bassoon until 2006. He has been solo bassoon in the Bamberg Symphony since 1997, and bassoon professor at Bremen’s University of the Arts since 2005.