Gareth Lubbe

Gareth Lubbe, born in Johannesburg (South Africa), received early musical training on the piano and the violin from the age of four. Five years later he made his debut as a violinist performing with an orchestra in Johannesburg. Numerous prizes at regional and national competitions followed.

He also appeared as a pianist with South Africa’s Radio Symphony Orchestra and conducted the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra. He pursued further studies on the violin in Germany, where he earned a music performance degree with Gorjan Kosuta at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. He subsequently completed advanced studies in viola under Barbara Westphal at the Musikhochschule Lübeck.

Gareth Lubbe has made guest appearances as a soloist and as a chamber musician in Europa, America and Asia. He has also appeared as a viola soloist with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and regularly appears in concert and features in CD recordings with the ensemble, under conductors such as Claudio Abbado and Daniel Harding.

Gareth Lubbe appears internationally as a renowned overtone singer and runs workshops. Together with "Doha" – his trio with the cellist Claudio Bohorquez and Hayden Chisholm – he has recorded an album in support of the “Great Stupa of Dharmakaya” in the Rocky Mountains.

In 2006 and 2007 Gareth Lubbe was solo violist with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic in Antwerp under Phillip Herreweghe, before going to Leipzig, where he was a solo violist with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and taught viola at the Musikhochschule.

He has been professor of viola at the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen since April 2013.