Michael Hamann

My family had a violin which no one played, and on my eighth birthday it was pressed into my hands. We did a lot of baroque music at home. My father, an enthusiastic amateur harpsichordist, organized countless church concerts together with players from the Bochum Symphony Orchestra. I knew how to hold a violin straight, so I was allowed to join in - which of course was a great motivation to keep at it!
At chamber music classes, hearing Bruckner's String Quintet and Brahms’ G major String Sextet for the first time as a love-struck teenager fuelled a desire to turn my hobby into my career. As I studied violin and composition alongside each other, I was often asked to perform contemporary music. Meanwhile, I carried on studying historical performance practice. Playing in an orchestra was part of all this from the start – it’s where I met other people as keen on music as me. But only at the age of 26 did I realise that orchestral playing would be my profession.

Michael Hamann studied violin and composition in Essen and Karlsruhe. He attended advanced classes with Herman Krebbers, Prof. Walter Levin, Prof. Reinhard Goebel and Prof. Sigiswald Kuijken. He played in contemporary ensembles such as Musikfabrik North Rhine-Westphalia, and early music groups such as Musica Antiqua Köln. He has been a member of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra since 1996.