Walter Hilgers

Biography

Walter Hilgers has been permanent guest conductor and honorary artistic director of the “Paul Constantinescu” Philharmonic Orchestra Ploieşti since 2016. From 2007 to 2014, he served as principal guest conductor of the Banat Philharmonic Orchestra Timişoara, and from 2017 to 2020 he served as the Chief Conductor of the Santa Fe Provincial Symphony Orchestra in Argentina.
As a guest conductor, he has led, among others: The Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Montevideo National Symphony Orchestra, the Buenos Aires National Orchestra, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Teatro Argentino in La Plata, the Mendoza Philharmonic Orchestra, the UNCUYO Symphony Orchestra Mendoza, the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra, the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, the Košice State Philharmonic Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra, the State Academic Chapel St. Petersburg, the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Orchestra of the National Theatre Mannheim, the Radio Chamber Orchestra Bucharest, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Bucharest, the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra Bucharest, the Romanian State Philharmonic Orchestras in Arad, Bacău, Cluj, Craiova, Iaşi, Oradea, Sibiu, Târgu Mureş, Timişoara and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Piteşti and Ploieşti. In addition, he has conducted chamber concerts of the Bavarian State Orchestra Munich, the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin, the Philharmonic Orchestra Qatar, the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Valencia Symphony Orchestra.
Walter Hilgers was born in Stolberg in the Rhineland. He received his instrumental training in tuba, double bass, and piano at the Cologne University of Music and Dance in Aachen, Germany.
His engagements as a tuba player took him to the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
He was a founding member of the German Brass ensemble and served at the ensemble from 1984 to 2007.
In 1988, the city of Bayreuth awarded him the coveted Bayreuth "Eichala" for his many years of participation in the Bayreuth Festival.

Professor i. R. Walter Hilgers has taught at the Lübeck University of Music, the Cologne University of Music and Dance in Aachen and Düsseldorf, the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre, the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar and the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón in Zaragoza.
His activities as a teacher, soloist, chamber musician and conductor in recent decades have taken him to other European countries, the USA, Latin America, Australia, and Asia.

Walter Hilgers has performed on almost all the world's famous stages, such as the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Centro Cultural Kirchner in Buenos Aires, the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sydney Opera House, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, the Sapporo Concert Hall, the Sala São Paulo, the Bolshoi Theatre, the Moscow Conservatory Hall, the St. St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, the Royal Albert Hall London, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Concert Hall of the KKL Lucerne, the Bucharest Athenaeum, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Cologne Philharmonic Hall, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Musikverein.

Website: www.walterhilgers.com