Frank Forst was born in Aalen in 1969 and had his first bassoon lessons there at the age of eleven. Just one year later, he became a private pupil of Gerhard Hase in Stuttgart, a position he held until 1989.
From 1989 to 1992, he studied at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media under Prof. Klaus Thunemann.
In 1991, Frank Forst won a prize at the ‘Prague Spring’ International Music Competition and was awarded a scholarship by the German Music Competition, subsequently being accepted into the national programme ‘Concerts of Young Artists’. From 1990 to 1992, he was also a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie.
From 1992 to 2003, he was principal bassoonist with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (now the Konzerthausorchester Berlin) and, since 1997, he has been principal bassoonist with the Camerata Salzburg.&
In 1996, he took up a teaching post at the ‘Hanns Eisler’ Academy of Music, Berlin as assistant to Prof. Klaus Thunemann, and in the 2002/03 winter term he began teaching his own bassoon class at the ‘Franz Liszt’ University of Music, Weimar. At the start of the 2003/04 winter term, he was appointed professor there.
In 1996, he served as a visiting professor at the Aichi Prefectural University of the Arts in Japan, and from 2016 to 2018 held the same position at the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków.
Frank Forst has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic, the North-West German Philharmonic, the Loh Orchestra Sondershausen, the Anhalt Philharmonic Dessau, the Camerata Euopaea, the California Youth Symphony Orchestra and the New Berlin Chamber Orchestra.
He also gives masterclasses in countries including Germany, Japan, China, Greece, Luxembourg, Hungary, Spain, Taiwan, Russia and the USA.
Frank Forst is deeply committed to playing historical instruments such as the dulcian and the bassoons from the Baroque to the Romantic periods.
He is a member of the Linos Ensemble, the Ensemble of Tokyo and the Thüringer Bach Collegium.
