Karlheinz Zoeller

Karlheinz Zoeller (born August 24, 1928 in Höhr-Grenzhausen ( Westerwald ), † July 29, 2005 in Berlin ) was a German musician, university professor and solo flutist with the Berlin Philharmonic .

Life

Zoeller studied in Frankfurt am Main and - with Kurt Redel - at the Detmold University of Music . During his training he received first prize in the “Competition for Young Soloists”, which was organized by Radio Frankfurt at the time and which was continued by ARD as the ARD International Music Competition in Munich from 1962 . From 1950 Zoeller appeared as a soloist and played chamber music. After his first engagements in Frankfurt, Herford and with the Symphony Orchestra of the West German Radio in Cologne , he joined the Berlin Philharmonic as a solo flutist in 1960 . In 1968, during a guest performance in South America, Zoeller suffered a serious accident while driving a taxi from the hotel to the concert hall in Buenos Aires. The taxi driver died. Zoeller himself suffered a serious injury from a metal splinter that got into his lungs. He had to give up his position with the Berliner Philharmoniker and therefore took over a professorship at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Hamburg (today: University of Music and Theater Hamburg ). In 1970 he had a successful lung operation and after his recovery he was finally able to return to the solo flutist of the Berliner Philharmoniker as first solo flutist in 1976, of which he was a member until he retired in 1993.

Zoeller frequently appeared as a wind soloist under the baton of Herbert von Karajan on, in several television shows as well as in chamber music events.

Grave of Zoeller in the Nikolassee cemetery

He promoted new music and was a soloist in the world premieres of the double concerto for flute, oboe and orchestra by György Ligeti (1972), as well as the flute concerts by Isang Yun (1977) and Manfred Trojahn (1983). In 1964 Zoeller founded the ensemble “ Philharmonic Soloists Berlin ”.

Zoeller taught as a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and at the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic . He also gave master classes . In 1968 he was awarded the German Critics' Prize.

Zoeller's grave is in the Nikolassee cemetery in Berlin.

literature

• Berliner Philharmoniker: Variations with Orchestra - 125 Years of the Berliner Philharmoniker , Volume 2, Biographies and Concerts, Verlag Henschel, May 2007, ISBN 978-3-89487-568-8