Walter Seyfarth
Walter Seyfarth
WALTER SEYFARTH was born in 1953 and is native of Düsseldorf. In the age of 16 he won the first prize of the Association of German Musicians competition. Following his studies at the Freiburg Musikhochschule under Peter Rieckhoff and as scholarship holder of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Academy with Karl Leister, he was appointed 1975 to the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra as 3rd deputy 1st clarinetist with an obligation to play an E-flat clarinet. In 1985 he joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra as solo E-flat clarinetist until his retirement in March 2020. In that time he performed under Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle and Kirill Petrenko among others.
1988 he founded the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet with which he toured worldwide in Europe, North and South America , Australia, Israel ,China, Japan, Taiwan. Numerous CD recordings where exclusively produced for BIS records and received critical acclaim. He was also member of the larger wind ensemble “ Winds of the Berlin Philharmonic”.
As a teacher, he continues to teach at the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and further as tutor since 2019 at the Academy for Music Berlin and from 2020 on also at the Anton Rubinstein Academy Berlin.
He was clarinet teacher and woodwind coach for the Youth Orchestra Program in Venezuela “El Sistema” and gave Clarinet Masterclasses in Europe, Asia, North-and South America. During his stay in 2012 for the Festival “Musica em Trancoso” (Brazil) he got to know the Brazilian Pianist Cesar Camargo Mariano with his Bossa Nova Quartet. Together with them he recorded a DVD with the title “Joined” which was nominated 2017 for the Latin Grammy Award. The composers Albert Lortzing and Ferdinand Ries belong to his ancestors.