Christoph Zimper is a solo artist, chamber musician, professor for clarinet at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW), composer of genre-transcending pieces, as well as artistic director of the Weißensee Klassik Festival. He studied clarinet as a concert discipline with Professor Johann Hindler at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and completed his studies with honors and the academic degree Magister artium in 2013.

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He is the first-prize winner of numerous competitions in Austria and abroad, scholar of the Angelika Prokopp Private Foundation of the Wiener Philharmoniker and member of the Academy of the Münchner Philharmoniker under Lorin Maazel.

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From 2012-2018 Christoph Zimper was the solo clarinetist of the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg. Additionally, he performed with orchestras such as the Vienna and Munich Philharmonics, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera and the Volksoper Vienna, and the orchestra of the Bavarian State Opera, worked with conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Valery Gergiev, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Möst, Daniele Gatti, Sir Neville Marriner, Fabio Luisi, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Kent Nagano etc. and went on worldwide concert tours.

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As a chamber musician he is a founding member of the Wiener Klangkommune, as well as a member of the Plattform K+K Vienna, the Vienna Wind Quintet and other ensembles.

 

In 2017, Christoph Zimper received the great honor of being appointed professor for clarinet at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, thus becoming the first professor for clarinet in the over 200 year history of the university who did not come from the rows of the Wiener Philharmoniker.

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In recent years he has become known as a composer of genre-transcending pieces, publishing his debut album “The Millennials Mass“ in 2021. In order to realize his idea of an innovative concert format he founded the Weißensee Klassik Festival in 2015 together with Christian Knaller and has since been its artistic director.