M I C H A E L M A R T I N K O F L E R
Michael Martin Kofler was born in 1966 in Villach/Austria and received his musical education first in his home country and later at the "Academy of Music" in Vienna with Prof. Wolfgang Schulz and Prof. Werner Tripp and at the "Music Academy Basel" with Prof. Peter-Lukas Graf. During this time he also attended master classes with Aurele Nicolet and Andre Jaunet.
In 1987 Michael Martin Kofler became principal flutist of the Gustav-Mahler-Youth-Orchestra under the leadership of Claudio Abbado, in December 1987 he got the same position as first principal flutist of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra with its chief conductor Maestro Sergiu Celibidache.
Already since his early youth Michael Martin Kofler won several prizes such as Prague, Brussels, Bari, Uelzen and the ARD competition in Munich. He was awarded the "Price of the Austrian Ministry of Art and Science".
Since 1983 Michael Martin Kofler has given solo concerts, recitals, chamber music evenings all over Europe and in Japan and he has been engaged for CD- and radio recordings as well as TV performances. He is a popular guest with renowned orchestras and conductors like The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (Sir Neville Marriner), the big Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras of Munich, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Prague, Salzburg, Linz, Ljubljana, Bratislava, Poznan, Zagreb, Warsaw, Stuttgart and the Chamber Orchestras of Munich, Vienna, Stuttgart and Württemberg, the Zagreb Soloist, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Budapest String Soloist, the Berlin Barock Orchestra, the Virtuosi di Praga, the Classical Polish Philharmonic, the Austrian Chambersymphonic Orchestra and the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn.
Famous conductors such as James Levine, Dimitri Kitajenko, Fabio Luisi, Bruno Weil, Gilbert Varga, Hans Graf, Sir Neville Marriner, Hubert Soudant, Gunther Schuller, Milan Horvat, Andrey Boreyko, Kazushi Ono and others were his partners.
Since 1989 he is Professor at the "Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts Mozarteum Salzburg". In addition he regularly receives invitations to hold master classes in Europe (e.g. International Summer Academy ‘Mozarteum’ Salzburg) and Japan and he is a jury member at important international competitions such as ARD-Munich, Cremona, Prague Spring, Krakov.
In fall 2001 Michael M.Kofler played under James Levine's baton Mozart's flute concerto K 314 with the Munich Philharmonic. These performances were so successful that James Levine invited the artist to play this concerto with him in New York.