J�rg Widmann was born in Munich on 19 June 1973. He studied the clarinet at the Hochschule f�r Musik in Munich with Gerd Starke and...

J�rg Widmann was born in Munich on 19 June 1973. He studied the clarinet at the Hochschule f�r Musik in Munich with Gerd Starke and later with Charles Neidich at the Juilliard School in New York (1994-1995). He additionally began to take composition lessons with Kay Westermann at the age of eleven and subsequently continued his studies with Wilfried Hiller and Hans Werner Henze (1994-1996) and later Heiner Goebbels and Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe (1997-1999). Widmann's great passion as a clarinettist is chamber music and he regularly performs with partners such as Daniel Barenboim, Tabea Zimmermann, Heinz Holliger, Andr�s Schiff, Kim Kashkashian, and H�l�ne Grimaud. He has also achieved great success as a soloist in orchestral concerts in Germany and abroad. Several works have been dedicated to Widmann by fellow composers: in 1999, he performed the premiere of "Music for Clarinet and Orchestra" by Wolfgang Rihm in the musica viva concert series; in 2006, he performed "Cantus" by Aribert Reimann with the WDR symphony orchestra, and in 2009, at the Lucerne Festival, the world premiere of Rechant by Heinz Holliger. From 2001 to 2015, J�rg Widmann was professor of clarinet at the Freiburg Staatliche Hochschule f�r Musik where he also took up the post of professor of composition in 2009.