Johannes Hinterholzer has been principal horn with the CAMERATA since 2012. Prior to that, he held the same post with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg for twelve years. Orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and many others regularly engage him as a guest. As a soloist, Hinterholzer has performed with the Mozarteum Orchestra, the CAMERATA, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSO Wien), the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Badische Staatskapelle Karlsruhe, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia VIVA Nottingham and the Collegium Musicum Copenhagen. He has performed with period instrument ensembles such as Concentus Musicus, Il Giardino Armonico and Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble. Johannes Hinterholzer is a sought-after chamber music partner of, amongst others, Lukas Hagen, Erich Höbarth, François Leleux, Benjamin Schmid and the Kuss Quartet. He studied at what was then the Mozarteum University of Music and Performing Arts in Salzburg under Josef Mayr and Radovan Vlatkovic. Since 2008, he has been Professor of Horn at the Munich University of Music.
Interview
In conversation with Johannes Hinterholzer
What significance does classical music hold in today’s world?
As a listener, a concert offers a time when you ‘don’t have to do anything’ – you can lose yourself entirely in listening and thus, whilst part of a community, embark on an individual journey of your own – we musicians are the guides, whisking the audience away to wonderful worlds of sound and telling moving stories.
If Mozart were still alive, what would you like to say to him?
I’d actually love to meet Mozart, to find out whether the image we have of him matches the real person. It would certainly be fascinating – he’s one of those artists who has enriched the world and humanity beyond measure.
What is the most important moment for you during a concert?
For me, the most important moment in a concert is when you realise how forces come together, how time suddenly becomes irrelevant, how something emerges that is hard to put into words. This doesn’t happen at every concert, but when that moment arises, it brings incredible joy to everyone in the room.
