Albrecht Mayer

Albrecht Mayer serves as principal oboist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, yet his reputation extends worldwide through solo appearances and chamber performances on oboe, English horn, and oboe d'amore. For the 2023 release Bach Generations he directed the Berliner Barock Solisten while playing all three instruments himself.

Born in Erlangen, Germany, on June 3, 1965, Mayer began piano, recorder, and voice lessons in childhood before taking up the oboe at age ten. His teachers included Gerhard Scheuer, Georg Meerwein, Maurice Bourgue, and Ingo Goritzki. One of his first orchestral engagements came with the European Community Youth Orchestra.

Professional work started in 1990 when he became principal oboist of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in his native city. Two years later he moved to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the same capacity and continues to appear with its wind ensembles.

As a soloist and chamber player Mayer has explored the core literature for his instruments while enlarging it through his own transcriptions and arrangements. Drawn to vocal music, he produced the 2003 album Johann Sebastian Bach: Lieder ohne Worte and the 2006 album New Seasons, on which he renders Handel vocal parts on oboe, oboe d'amore, or English horn. Additional transcriptions cover works by Vivaldi, Ravel, and Debussy. He has also commissioned and recorded new pieces, among them contributions to Martin Grubinger’s album Drums ’n’ Chant. Chamber-music partners have included Hélène Grimaud, Thomas Quasthoff, and Leif Ove Andsnes, while solo engagements have placed him alongside Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Nigel Kennedy.

His recordings have twice earned him the Echo Klassik “Instrumentalist of the Year” award, and nearly all have appeared on Deutsche Grammophon. In 2019 he recorded Longing for Paradise with conductor Jakub Hrusa and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. The year 2021 brought releases of Mozart’s oboe concertos and music by Peteris Vasks, the latter issued on Ondine. In 2023 he again led the Berliner Barock Solisten on Bach Generations and joined the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for Leipzig’s Bach300 Festival, which marked the three-hundredth anniversary of Bach’s appointment to the St. Thomas School.