Max Volbers

Recorder player, harpsichordist, and ensemble leader Max Volbers is one of the most versatile young musicians in the field of early music. Wholly in keeping with the sound worlds of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it was a given that musicians would master several instruments, as a multi-instrumentalist he illuminates the repertoire of early music from a great variety of perspectives. Particularly important to him is the exploration of new repertoire, whether through paraphrases, pasticcios, or transcriptions. He also devotes himself frequently to contemporary music and regularly collaborates with composers on commissioned works. He studied at the Mozarteum University Salzburg with Dorothee Oberlinger, Walter van Hauwe, Reinhard Goebel, and Florian Birsak.

As a prizewinner of the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb, among others, he is a welcome guest at the Verbier Festival, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Sansscouci Music Festival, the Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele or the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. He plays equally well with ensembles such as La Cetra or the Capricornus Consort as well as with “modern” orchestras such as the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the NDR Radiophilharmonie or the Musikkollegium Winterthur.

As a conductor, he has worked with ensembles including the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and soloists such as Olivia Vermeulen. In addition to his concert career, Max teaches at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and in a number of masterclasses.