Matthias Glander studied clarinet at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin with Hans Radünz. This was followed by additional studies with Prof. Ewald Koch in 1981-83 and with Oskar Michallik from 1984-86. In 1983, General Music Director Otmar Suitner engaged him at the Staatskapelle Berlin of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, where he has been solo clarinettist since 1985. He has also played regularly with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra as principal clarinettist under conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Carlo Maria Giulini, James Levine, Sir Simon Rattle, Kurt Sanderling, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Günter Wand.
In addition to his work in the orchestra, Matthias Glander maintains an extensive activity as a soloist and chamber musician with a wide variety of renowned orchestras and chamber ensembles. He has played acclaimed concerts with Daniel Barenboim, Jo Jo Ma, in Berlin, Weimar and Paris. He also plays regularly at international music festivals, such as the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival with Elena Bashkirowa, the Capucon brothers, Boris Pergamenschikow, Dmitri Sitkowetski, LangLang, Nikolai Znayder or Yefim Bronfman.
As a soloist he has performed under the baton of David Afkham, Daniel Barenboim, Hartmut Haenchen, Siegfried Kurz, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Otmar Suitner, Sebastian Weigle in Berlin, Paris, New York, Tokyo and others.
Berlin, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Kanazawa, Hiroshima, Fukuoka. He devotes a considerable part of his time to the education of young musicians. Since 1999 he has been working with the wind players of the Arab-Israeli West-Eastern Divan Orchestra founded by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said in Weimar. He also teaches as part of the Orchestra Academy of the Staatskapelle Berlin, founded in 1997, and as a professor at the Academia de Estudios Orchestale of the Barenboim-Said Foundation in Seville from 2004-2013. Since autumn 2015 he has been a lecturer at the newly founded Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin Mitte, which is closely linked to the Staatskapelle and the Staatsoper Berlin.
After completing their training at the two academies, many of his students went on to obtain solo positions in top European orchestras: including the Bavarian State Opera Munich, Staatskapelle/Staatsoper Berlin, Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, Lower Saxony State Opera Hanover, Teatro Real Madrid, Royal Scottish National
Orchestra.
Matthias Glander is co-founder of the Kammerharmonie der Lindenoper, the Wind Soloists of the Staatskapelle Berlin, as well as the Trio Apollon, with whom he has released several CD recordings. The WARNER CLASSICS production “Wasserspiele” with works by Francaix, Poulenc, Enescu, Kurtág and Matthus received the ECHO KLASSIK PRIZE 2006 for the best chamber music recording. As a conductor, Matthias Glander has performed regularly with the Berlin-Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra since 2009. Concerts at the Philharmonie Berlin with soloists from the Berlin Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Berlin, among others, expand his musical sphere. In 2020 he celebrated great success as soloist and conductor at the Mozart Festival of the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra. Concert tours have taken him to almost all the world’s major music centres.
From the winter semester 2023/24, Maathias Glander will be teaching clarinet at the Anton Rubinstein International Music Academy in Berlin.