Otmar Gaiswinkler
Since 2007 he has been professor of concert trombone at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.
He was solo trombonist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. His first engagement was with the Bruckner Orchestra Linz.
As a sought-after soloist, he regularly works with renowned orchestras in Austria and abroad as well as with well-known colleagues such as Joseph Alessi, Dave Taylor, Gábor Tarkövy and Hans Gansch.
Numerous CD recordings with him as a soloist have been released, including works by Leopold Mozart, J. G. Albrechtsberger and world premieres of contemporary works.
TV concerts with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on the alphorn (Leopold Mozart, Sinfonia Pastorella) and on the alto trombone (Michael Haydn double concerto) round off his activities as a soloist.
Masterclasses in Asia (China, Taiwan, Japan, Russia), Europe (Spain, Poland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Austria), Australia (Sydney, Melbourne) and the USA (New York, Chicago) are an integral part of his teaching activities.
He has also played in various ensembles such as the Austrian Brass Connection, the Ensemble Pro Brass and the Vienna Symphony Jazz Project.
He plays a lot of early music with the Wiener Akademie, the Concentus Musicus Wien, the Giardino Armonico Milano, the Grand Chapelle Madrid and is a founding member of the "Ensemble Tonus", which plays wind music on historical instruments, as well as a founding member of the Vienna Trombone Quartet.
Otmar Gaiswinkler plays exclusively on a trombone he created called "Aurora" from the Schagerl company.
As co-founder and chairman of the Tirolklang association, it is important to him to find and promote talented musicians.
Branimir Slokar
Slokar's reputation as one of the best trombonists of his time paved the way for an extraordinarily brilliant career.
As a solo trombonist in renowned orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Rafael Kubelík, Slokar soon found himself in the spotlight due to his extraordinary musical talent.
In 1980 he gave up his orchestral activities and pursued a career as a soloist, performing concertos for trombone and orchestra, chamber music, solo concertos with organ, piano and harp and playing at many important international music festivals in Salzburg, Vienna, Dubrovnik and elsewhere. Branimir Slokar's musical virtuosity is complemented and enriched by his outstanding pedagogical talent, and in addition to professorships in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) and Bern (Switzerland), he is regularly invited to give masterclasses throughout Europe as well as in the USA and Japan.
In 1973 he founded the Slokar Trombone Quartet and led this ensemble to a very high level of musical brilliance and authenticity. Numerous recordings, radio and television broadcasts and his solo concerts have contributed to his worldwide fame as a representative and promoter of the trombone.
In 2010, Slokar received "The Neill Humfeld Award for Excellence in Trombone Teaching", awarded by the International Trombone Association. In 2013 he was awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Maribor, and in 2018 he received an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the National Academy of Music in Bulgaria.
Jonas Bylund
After graduating from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm in 1987, Jonas Bylund was principal trombonist with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1988 he won first prize at the international soloist competition CIEM and in 1989 the ARD competition in Munich. Jonas was later solo trombonist with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.
Jonas has performed as a soloist with a number of leading European orchestras, including the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Orchestre de Suisse Romande and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is active as a conductor and has worked with the brass ensembles of the HR Frankfurt, the DSO Berlin, the Sinfonieorchester Aachen, the Gävle Symphony Orchestra and Rice University Houston, USA.
He has been a trombone professor at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media since 1995 and a trombone professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo since 2016. In 2022, Jonas received the International Trombone Association Neill Humfeld Award for Excellence in Trombone Teaching.
Michael Massong
Born in Germany in 1969, he studied at the Royal College of Music in London.
His teachers were John Iveson from the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Christopher Mowat from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Other teachers included the legendary brass professor Arnold Jacobs, Charles Vernon from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Joseph Alessi from the New York Philharmonic and the Swedish trombonist Christian Lindberg.
Michael Massong was principal trombonist with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra in Denmark, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Berlin. Since 2014, he has devoted himself entirely to his solo activities, chamber music and teaching.
Michael Massong has played as a guest in numerous international orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic in Norway, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra Stockholm, and Malaysian Philharmonic.
Michael Massong is active worldwide as a soloist and teacher. Masterclasses regularly take him to Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Russia and the USA.
He has performed at brass festivals worldwide, including the International Trombone Festival at the University of Texas in Austin in 2009, at Columbus State University in 2013 and at the SliderAsia Festival 2015 in Hong Kong.
In 2015, two CD recordings by Michael Massong were released on the German classical label MDG: "Singübung" the Lyrical Trombone and a CD with romantic works for trumpet, trombone and piano.
Michael Massong plays exclusively on instruments from the company "Thein-Brass".
Leonhard Paul
Leonhard Paul was born in Vienna on 16 April 1967, grew up in Mödling and lives in Vienna.He studied classical trombone with Horst Küblböck and music education at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (now MDW) and jazz trombone with Erich Kleinschuster at the Vienna Conservatory (now MUK).
Since 1996 he has been the trombonist and bass trumpeter of the group Mnozil Brass, other formations are/were the group "Die Landstreich", the salon orchestra Alhambra, the "Eiserne Zeit", the trio "Wieder/Gansch/Paul" and the "Schlagertherapie" with Thomas Gansch, Sebastian Fuchsberger and Michael Hornek.
In addition to the trombone and bass trumpet, Leonhard Paul also plays the baroque trombone. He has played and continues to play this instrument with the ensemble "Tonus" and the "Concentus Musicus" under Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
© Foto: lukasbeck.com
Matthias Gerstner
Matthias Gerstner is an internationally active pianist, chamber musician and song accompanist. He is interested in everything that can be played on the piano.
During his school years, he learnt the piano, organ and cello - the latter he had to give up due to the horrendous pain caused by the thumb attachment. After leaving school, he studied organ and piano with a minor in horn at the Augsburg Conservatory and then went on to study piano in Münster. His teachers were Karl Maureen, Michael Keller, Hans Leopold Schwerdhöfer and, at masterclasses, Harald Vogel, Konrad Hansen and Vitali Margulis.
Gerstner accompanied Peter Ziether and Konrad Widmer on their singing courses. He has performed with orchestras on several occasions, including Tchaikovsky's piano concertos.
He has also performed regularly with choirs. In his numerous organ concerts, he has played compositions from the North German School, works by Bach, French Romanticism and Hindemith.
Since 1995 he has been employed at the Vienna University of Music as a chamber musician and solo accompanist for students of double bass, trombone and tuba.
His collaboration with Josef Niederhammer, which celebrated its 25th anniversary at the Vienna Musikverein in 2013, has been very rich.
The fact that the pieces sound different for everyone, even though they all play the same notes, is simply marvellous for him.