Biography
Eberhard Klemmstein graduated in viola from the Academy of Music, Berlin and supplemented his studies with Prof. Takis Ktenaveas.
In 1964 he founded a professional string quartet, The Reger Quartet, with which he lived through eleven years of widely diverse international concert performances. These were accompanied by numerous recordings for radio, TV and records.
From 1975 to 1979 Klemmstein was a freelance violist in Berlin and a regular guest with the renowned orchestras of Berlin. In the year 1975 he began a solo career as violist and also produced many radio and CD recordings. He taught and performed at different international music festivals in the U.S.A. and Canada. Among his music partners are to be found names such as Ruggiero Ricci, John Ogden, Gary Karr, Grant Johannesen, Yuri Mazurkevich and Robert Aitken.
In 1985 he founded the Marteau Ensemble, a group specialising in chamber music for larger set-ups, and still very active. Lately he participated as instructor and violist in the "Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival" founded by the New York cellist Misha Quint.
In the period of 1979 to 2008 Klemmstein occupied the position of Director of the Erlangen Music Institute. It was here, too, that he launched his successful career as a composer. The many-sided character of his oeuvre is mirrored in numerous chamber music works for different set-ups as also works for orchestra which one encounters more and more often in concerts, radio broadcasts and on CDs as well as Lieder, works for orchestra and the operas “Alice im Konservenland” (first performed in 2000), “Der 8. Tag” (first performed in 2006), "Die Wilden Schwäne" and “Saladins Gabe”. His music is published by FRIEDRICH HOFMEISTER MUSIKVERLAG, Leipzig.
