The 27-year-old Simon Höfele is the winner of the most important German classical music prize, OPUS KLASSIK 2020, and within a short space of time has established himself internationally as one of the most successful trumpet players of the young generation. As a soloist, he has already played with many leading orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Bern Symphony Orchestra, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Tonkünstler Orchestra, RundfunkSinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, SWR Symphonieorchester, MDR Sinfonieorchester (MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra), NDR Radiophilharmonie, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Staatskapelle Halle, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. In the 2020/21 season, he was artist-in-residence with the Duisburger Philharmoniker.

He has already given guest recitals in the Wigmore Hall in London, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, in L’Auditori in Barcelona, the Müpa Budapest, the Philharmonie Luxembourg, the Bozar in Brussels, in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, in the Konzerthaus Berlin, in the Prinzregententheater and Herkulessaal in Munich, in the Konzerthaus Dortmund, at the Cheltenham Music Festival, the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, the MITO Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the MDR Musiksommer and the Grafenegg Festival.

Simon Höfele has worked or still works with conductors such as Ryan Bancroft, Joseph Bastian, Semyon Bychkov, Alpesh Chauhan, Jonathan Cohen, Dennis Russell Davies, Jan Willem de Vriend, Ben Gernon, Pietari Inkinen, Julia Jones, Vladimir Jurowski, Roland Kluttig, Joana Mallwitz, Andrew Manze, Matthias Pintscher, Clemens Schuldt, Steven Sloane, Markus Stenz, Valentin Uryupin, Mario Venzago, Lorenzo Viotti, Duncan Ward, Kahchun Wong and many others.

In the 2021/2022 season, Simon Höfele is artist-in-residence with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, where he can be heard and seen in a wide range of orchestral and chamber-music programmes. He will appear in solo recitals and orchestral concerts at venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Isarphilharmonie in Munich, the Philharmonie Luxembourg and the Müpa in Budapest and with ensembles such as the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Badische Staatskapelle, the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie, the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Tonkünstler Orchestra, the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra. He will also appear at the Musikfest Berlin, the Grafenegg Festival, the Heidelberger Frühling festival and the Lower Saxony Music Festival.

As well as performing familiar trumpet repertoire ranging from Telemann, Tartini, Hummel and Mozart to Jolivet, Arutjunjan and Zimmermann, Simon Höfele is very enthusiastic about contemporary music. He has given the premières of several works written for him: “Milky Way” by Miroslav Smka (09/2019, Concertgebouw), “Three pieces for trumpet” and the Concertino for trumpet and orchestra by Mark Simpson (04/2019, Saffron Hall and 05/2021 Duisburger Philharmoniker) and “Fantasy for Trumpet” by Kaan Bulak (04/2019, London). In addition, he regularly plays pieces by Toshio Hosokawa, Christian Jost and Matthias Pintscher, giving the première of the latter’s double concerto for two trumpets with Reinhold Friedrich and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra in 2012.

Simon Höfele is an equally enthusiastic performer of chamber music in a wide variety of combinations. His partners include the pianists Elisabeth Brauss and Frank Dupree and the percussionist Vivi Vassileva.

Simon Höfele received his first trumpet lessons at the age of seven in his native city of Darmstadt. Five years later, while still at school, he became a pupil of Reinhold Friedrich, who accepted him into his trumpet class at the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule as a 14-year-old. He was picked out for the best European talent development schemes, among things being chosen as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, nominated as an ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) “Rising Star” by the Cologne Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Dortmund and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and selected as an artist in the series “Junge Wilde” run by the Dortmund Konzerthaus. He now also teaches as a Visiting Artist at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and in various masterclasses.

Simon Höfele is signed to Berlin Classics as an exclusive artist. His album “Standards” with the trumpet concertos of Haydn, Hummel, Arutjunjan and Copland, which was recorded with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Duncan Ward and released in early 2020, was acclaimed by music critics and awarded the OPUS KLASSIK 2020 prize as “concert recording of the year.” The album “New Standards”, featuring classic recital pieces by Hindemith, Honegger, Francaix and Enescu, among others, which was released in spring 2021, also met with the highest praise from reviewers and concert organisers.

Alongside his musical projects, Simon Höfele is also involved in cultural politics and founded the association “Kunstverlust”, for which he makes photographic portraits of people who work actively to preserve art and culture.