Prof. Frank Forst

Frank Forst was born in Aalen in 1969 and received his first bassoon lessons there at the age of eleven. Just one year later, he became a private pupil of Gerhard Hase in Stuttgart until 1989. From 1989 to 1992, he studied at the Music university in Hanover with Prof Klaus Thunemann.

In 1991, Frank Forst won a prize at the international music competition "Prague Spring" and a scholarship at the German Music Competition, where he was subsequently accepted into the national selection of "Concerts of Young Artists". He was also a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie from 1990 to 1992. From 1992 to 2003 he was principal bassoonist of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (now the Konzerthausorchester Berlin) and since 1997 he has been principal bassoonist of the Camerata Salzburg.

In 1996 Frank Forst took on a teaching position at the Hanns Eisler University of Music Berlin as assistant to Prof Klaus Thunemann and in the winter semester of 2002/03 his own bassoon class at the FRANZ LISZT University of Music Weimar. He was appointed professor there at the beginning of the 2003/04 winter term.

Frank Forst devotes himself to intensive international concert activities as a soloist and chamber musician and is regularly invited to music festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Hambach Music Festival and the Bebersee Festival. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic Orchestra, the Northwest German Philharmonic Orchestra, the Camerata Europaea, the California Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Loh Orchestra Sondershausen, the Anhalt Philharmonic Orchestra Dessau and the New Berlin Chamber Orchestra.

He has also given masterclasses in countries such as Germany, Japan, China, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Hungary, Spain, Taiwan, Brazil, Russia and the USA. In summer 2016, Frank Forst taught as a visiting professor at the Aichi University of the Arts in Japan and was a visiting professor at the Academy of Music in Krakow, Poland, from 2016 to 2018. 

Frank Forst devotes himself intensively to playing historical instruments such as the dulcian and bassoons from the Baroque to the Romantic period, performing in ensembles such as Concerto Köln, the Stuttgart Baroque Orchestra, il capriccio and L'onda armonica. He is a member of the Linos Ensemble, the Ensemble of Tokyo and the Thüringer Bach Collegium.