Since winning second prize at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 1986 Reinhold Friedrich has appeared on all important stages of the national and international music scene. His repertoire ranges from the latest solo compositions to ancient music on historical original instruments, including the Baroque and keyed trumpets. In 1982 he made his debut at the Berliner Festwochen, performing Luciano Berio’s Sequenza X and in 1994 at the Wiener Musikverein playing Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto on the keyed trumpet. Since its founding in 2003 Reinhold Friedrich has been Principal Trumpet of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra Brass Ensemble.

Reinhold Friedrich has played with the Capriccio Barockorchester, Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and Vienna Academy on historical instruments, and has premiered works by Wolfgang Rihm, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Rebecca Saunders, Hans Werner Henze, Nicolaus A. Huber and Adriana Hölszky. The concertos Eirene by Herbert Willi and Nobody knows de trouble I see by Bernd Alois Zimmermann (ECHO Klassik Award-winning performance) hold an important place in his core repertoire.

As a solo player Reinhold Friedrich has performed with such ensembles as the Berliner Barock Solisten, La Stagione Frankfurt, Wiener Kammerorchester, Kammerorchester Basel, Bamberger Symphoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and all orchestras of the ARD. These performances were conducted by, amongst others, Claudio Abbado, Semyon Bychkov, Dennis Russell Davies, Peter Eötvös, Reinhard Goebel, Martin Haselböck, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Eliahu Inbal, Kristjan Järvi, Neeme Järvi, Dmitrij Kitajenko, Sir Neville Marriner, Ingo Metzmacher, Jonathan Nott, Kazushi Ono and Hans Zender.

His recent partners in the eld of chamber music are Eriko Takezawa (piano), Robyn Schulkowsky (percussion), Martin Lücker and Sebastian Küchler-Blessing (organ). Since its foundation in 2013 he has performed in the ensemble L’éventail de Jeanne with Claudio Bohórquez (cello), Sascha Armbruster (saxophone) and Eriko Takezawa.

Numerous recordings give evidence of his comprehensive work. The recording with the Göttinger Symphonie Orchester under the baton of Christoph-Mathias Mueller, entitled Russian Trumpet Concertos, has been awarded an ECHO Klassik Award. In 2016 Reinhold Friedrich recorded Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 with the Berliner Barock Solisten, conducted by Reinhard Goebel.

Reinhold Friedrich is professor in Karlsruhe, Germany, and Hiroshima, Japan, as well as Visiting Professor of Trumpet at the Royal Academy of Music. He regularly holds masterclasses all over the world. His former students are now professors at the universities of Hannover, Freiburg, Essen, Detmold and Budapest, as well as members of renowned orchestras in Berlin, Munich, Paris, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Moscow, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.