Important personality
Bassoonist Klaus Thunemann died at the age of 88
The University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar mourns the loss of Prof. Klaus Thunemann, who died on August 29, 2025, at the age of 88. The inspired and inspiring artist and educator taught at the Weimar Master Classes for many years. Every summer from Weimar's Year of Culture in 1999 until 2005, and then again in 2007, he was a guest at the Weimar University of Music, providing young musicians from all over the world with important inspiration for their bassoon playing.
“Mr. Thunemann was an important figure for the Weimar Master Classes for many years,” says his former student, Weimar bassoon professor Frank Forst. "His influence on several generations of bassoonists was unique, and his numerous recordings had a strong influence on me and many of my colleagues in their musical development. He had a decisive influence on me personally, first as his student and later as his assistant for several years."
Klaus Thunemann began his musical training in his hometown of Magdeburg at the Georg Philipp Telemann Technical College for Music. In 1957, he left the GDR to study bassoon with Prof. Willy Fugmann at the Academy of Music in West Berlin. In 1962, he became principal bassoonist in the NDR Symphony Orchestra. In 1965, he was awarded a prize at the ARD Competition in Munich. As a soloist and orchestral musician, he worked with the most important conductors of his time and recorded the entire solo repertoire for bassoon.
From 1978, Thunemann was professor of bassoon at the University of Music and Drama in Hanover and gave master classes in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Great Britain, Japan, Argentina, and the USA. In 1996, he took up a professorship at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin, where he continued to teach even after his retirement in 2005. In 2008, he became a professor at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid and at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.
[11 September 2025]