Prof. Dirk Hirthe

Dirk Hirthe was born in 1984 in Freiburg im Breisgau. From 1999 to 2004, he was a junior student of George A. Monch at the Freiburg University of Music. He then studied with Prof. Jens Björn-Larsen at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, who remains his teacher, mentor and friend to this day. Dirk Hirthe was a scholarship holder of the German Foundation for Musical Life as well as a special prize winner of the city of Marl and the state of Baden-Württemberg.

He has performed as a soloist with the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra and the Badische Staatskapelle. From 2007 to 2008 he was a trainee at the Stuttgart State Opera. He has been a tuba player with the Badische Staatskapelle since 2008 and is a regular guest with many symphony and opera orchestras in Germany, including the Bavarian State Opera, the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra and the SWR Symphony Orchestra. In 2008, he appeared for the first time with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Thomas Hengelbrock.

In 2012, Dirk Hirthe recorded the ‘Duetto per Tuba’ for the American composer Stephen Mellilo on his latest CD ‘Chapter21’. In 2014, he made his debut at the Lucerne Festival with the Lucerne Festival Brass Ensemble, with whom he has been a welcome guest ever since and recorded their latest CD ‘Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition’. In 2019, he also made his debut with the renowned brass quintet ‘Stockholm Chamber Brass’, of which he has been a permanent member since 2022.

Dirk Hirthe has been a professor of tuba and brass chamber music at the Karlsruhe University of Music since 2011. His students have won numerous prizes at international competitions, including 1st and 2nd prizes at the Markneukirchen International Instrumental Competition, the International Competition in Jeju (South Korea), the Lieksa International Competition (Finland) and the International ‘Leos Janacek’ Competition in Brno (Czech Republic).

His students have also gained positions in renowned orchestras such as the Monte Carlo Symphony Orchestra, the Opéra Montpellier, the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Busan Symphony Orchestra, the Siegburg/Bonn Federal Music Corps, the Munich Federal Police Orchestra and many more. Dirk Hirthe became an official ‘Miraphone Artist’ in 2015. Numerous masterclasses have already taken him all over Europe.