This month we have selected an English Horn player as the oboist of the month of August. He is Dominik Wollenweber.

“As an English horn player I have a lot of time to listen. I mostly play when all the other musicians are silent. The dark sound of the cor anglais is especially effective at lyrical, melancholy and contemplative moments”

The sound of the cor anglais (English horn) has been familiar to him since his earliest childhood: his father was the cor anglais player in the Bavarian State Orchestra. But Dominik Wollenweber took the long way round to this instrument. He first played the flute and, aged 14, took up the oboe, which he studied in Munich with Hagen Wangenheim at the Musikhochschule and with Simon Dent at the Richard Strauss Conservatory.

He made his first contacts with the Berliner Philharmoniker as a scholar of the Orchestra Academy, in which he studied from 1991-93 with Hansjörg Schellenberger. During this time, Wollenweber was principal oboist of the European Union Youth Orchestra under Claudio Abbado. After applying for various oboe positions, he approached the Berliner Philharmoniker to audition for the vacant cor anglais post and was engaged.

In addition to his many activities in the orchestra and chamber music, he has taught since 2000 as a visiting professor for oboe at the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule. The father of six children, he prefers to spend his free time with his family.