Karl Leister
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Karl Leister (born June 15, 1937) is a world-renowned classical clarinet player. He was born in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. At a very young age, he learned to play the clarinet from his father, also a clarinetist, and later studied at the Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin. As a teenager, he was accepted into the Komische Oper Berlin under Vaclav Neumann and Walter Felenstein as clarinet soloist.
In 1959, Leister joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Herbert von Karajan; this eminently productive musical association was to last for thirty years. During this time, he became internationally recognized as a major soloist and chamber musician. He was also one of the founding members of the “Blaser der Berliner Philharmoniker”/Berlin Soloists, which made a number of masterful recordings – including Brahms’s "Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Opus 115”. Additionally, he co-founded the Ensemble Wien-Berlin.
The creation of the Herbert von Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra has permitted Karl Leister to teach music to a whole new generation of musicians. Herr Leister currently holds the position of Professor at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler, Berlin. [1]
