Sun, May 10, 2026, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall
6th Chamber Concert
Lennox Berkeley: Sextet op. 47 for clarinet, horn and string quartet
Friedrich Smetana: String Quartet No. 1 in E minor “From my life”
Joseph Miroslav Weber: Septet in E major “From my life”
clarinet: Rupert Wachter
Bassoon: José Silva
Horn: Bernd Künkele
Horn: Jan-Niklas Siebert
Violin: Daniel Cho
Violin: Sawako Kosuge
Viola: Daniel Burmeister
Violoncello: Christine Hu
Rupert Wachter
clarinetRupert Wachter has been principal clarinet of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since 1988. He also regularly plays as a guest with orchestras such as the Symphony Orchestras of the NDR, MDR, Bavarian and Hessian Radio, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich. He has worked with conductors including Nicolaus Harnoncourt, Horst Stein, Christoph Eschenbach, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Lorin Maazel, Kent Nagano, Christian Thielemann and Zubin Metha. As a chamber musician and solo clarinettist, he has toured large parts of Europe, Japan, China, South Africa and the USA. Since 2016 he has taught at the Hamburg Academy of Music and Theatre.
José Silva
BassoonJosé Silva, born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, in 1995, started playing the bassoon at the age of nine as part of the education programme “El Sistema”. He gathered orchestral experience in various Venezuelan orchestras under conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado. At the age of 15, he first toured Europe with the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra. In Caracas, he participated in master courses with Klaus Thunemann and Carlo Colombo, among others. From 2012 to 2017 he studied with Matthias Racz at the Zurich Academy of the Arts. José Silva was a member of the academy of the Bavarian State Orchestra and played as a substitute with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich and the Dresden Philharmonic. He won prizes at the Concours National d’Exécution Musicale de Riddes and the Carl-Maria von Weber Bassoon Competition in Wroclaw. Since 2018 he has been principal bassoon of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Bernd Künkele
HornBernd Künkele was born in Kiel in 1964 and studied with Erich Penzel at the Cologne Music Academy and with Froydis Ree Wekre at the Oslo Music Academy. After graduating with distinction, he began a master’s degree course as a soloist with Marie-Luise Neunecker at the Frankfurt Academy of Music in 1992, completing this in 1996 with the concert diploma. Bernd Künkele was the winner of the International Competition “Città di Porcia” in 1991, the German Music Academy Competition in 1992 and the International Instrumental Competition in Markneukirchen in 1994, among others. He also received the Eduard Söring Prize in 1994. Since 1992 he has been principal horn of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra; from 1998 to 2001 and 2008 to 2010 he was also a member of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
Jan-Niklas Siebert
HornJan-Niklas Siebert was born in Neuss in 1988 and grew up in a musical family. He began his music education at the age of six, first learning to play the trumpet and piano. Two years later he moved from trumpet to horn. His father, a horn player with the Niederrheinische Sinfoniker, became his first horn teacher. From 2001 to 2007 he gathered orchestral experience as a member of the symphony orchestra of his music school, the State Youth Orchestra of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. In 2005 he enrolled as a junior student at the Cologne Music Academy, where Paul van Zelm was his teacher; he also became a full-time student there later. In August 2009 he joined the academy of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra. Since March 2011 Jan-Niklas Siebert has been a member of the horn section of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra. In 2013 he received the Eduard Söring Prize of the Foundation for the Support of the Hamburg State Opera.
Daniel Cho
ViolinDaniel Cho was born in New Jersey (USA) and began playing the violin in South Korea at the age of six. He received his bachelor's degree from The Juilliard School in the class of Hyo Kang and David Chan. He then continued his studies with Kolja Blacher at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. He won numerous international competitions, including the Max Rostal Competition 2019, in which he received the top prize. As a soloist he played with orchestras such as the Hamburger Camerata, the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra and Sejong Soloists. In 2010 he made his New York debut in the Weill Hall of Carnegie Hall, presented by the Korea Music Foundation, and in 2013 he made his European debut at the Musée du Louvre in Paris as part of the "Concerts du Jeudi". He also appears as a member of Sejong Soloists and has worked closely with artists such as Gil Shaham, Cho-Liang Lin and Vadim Repin. As concertmaster he played with The Juilliard Orchestra, the Verbier Festival Orchestra and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. From the 2021/22 season he joined the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra as first concertmaster.
Sawako Kosuge
ViolinSawako Kosuge was born in Tokyo and received her first musical education at the Toho Gakuen School of Music, Tokyo. After gaining orchestral experience in Japan, including with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, she came to Germany in 2018. In 2021, she completed her master's degree at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Leipzig with Prof. Henrik Hochschild, and continued her studies at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden with Prof. Ralf-Carsten Brömsel. In the seasons 21/22 and 22/23 Sawako Kosuge was an academist of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2023 she plays in the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg.
Christine Hu
VioloncelloChristine Hu was born in Vienna in 1985. She studied with Tobias Kühne and Heinrich Schiff in Vienna, with Thomas Demenga and Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) in Basel as well as Thomas Grossenbacher in Zurich. She attended master courses with Steven Isserlis and Miklós Perényi, among others. She received scholarships from the Herbert von Karajan Foundation and the Thyll-Dürr Foundation and was supported by Yehudi Menuhin’s foundation “Live Music Now” and Villa Musica. In 2013 she was interim section leader of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. She has performed regularly with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and Camerata Bern and was a member of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne before becoming a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in 2016. As the cellist of the trio oreade, Christine Hu has explored string trio literature extensively, winning the first prize at the International String Trio Competition in Munich in 2012 and making debuts at the Tonhalle Zurich in 2014 and at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad in 2016, among others. The trio’s debut CD/Blu-Ray was released in 2015 by bmn-medien. The trio oreade has been playing three instruments built by Antonio Stradivari since the autumn of 2017, generously loaned to them by the Stradivari Foundation. Having grown up bilingually and under the influence of two different cultures – her parents are originally from Taiwan – Christine Hu feels that the search for balance and intercession is an essential part of her artistic life.
The soundscapes of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra's chamber concerts are as diverse as the characters of the musicians who perform in them. The demands in the orchestra pit are often characterized by the size and diversity of the voices. Chamber music, on the other hand, reduces this dimension to smaller ensembles and allows for intimate musical interaction. As in a dialog, different opinions come together, new ideas emerge and develop during the performance, opening up a creative space for spontaneous development.
