Hans Nickel
The internationally acclaimed performer, teacher, clinician and adjudicator Dutch born Hans Nickel has recently retired from his position as solo tuba with the German WDR Symphony Orchestra, a position which he held from 1986- recorded by the press as 'a legend retires'.
Hans' Adams Gear
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His playing reshaped the notion of what an F tuba should sound like.
As a performer Nickel has been invited to premiere works by respected contemporary composers including Stockhausen, Bedrich, Gregson, Van der Roost, Adler-McKean and Hamers. In 2024 he gave the German premiere of Reflections on the Mississippi for Tuba and Orchestra by Michael Daugherty in a live stream performance with the WDR Symphony Orchestra.
He won the highly esteemed 'European Soloist of the Year' prize twice at the EBBC in Rotterdam and Cardiff.
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Nickel's playing is seldom less than excellent and he engages the musical contours with panache
His many solo CD recordings include canTUBAllada (considered 'essential listening' by the Sunday Times), Tuba Obsessions, In Freundschaft, 'aus den leopardi zyklus' and Bernstein's Mippy.
During the Corona pandemic Nickel turned more to social media and easy-listening music. Thus the Hans Nickel plays...series was created by the WDR for their YouTube channel with popular classics re-arranged for tuba and chamber orchestra. The first four recordings in this series reached over one million people earning him the comment 'The tuba becomes a digital star...'. Other recordings have followed in this series and can be viewed on YouTube.
As a popular teacher Hans Nickel teaches at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf and the Conservatorium in Maastricht. He also teaches the low brass of the German Bundeswehr in their pre-university programme.
Nickel regularly teaches worldwide and can now enjoy seeing his former students holding positions in the world's top orchestras including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Brussels Philharmonic, the Radio Orchestra Athens, Opera Marseille, the Seoul Symphony Orchestra and Xi'an Symphony Orchestra. Others have become teachers themselves and teach at renowned institutes and several are now established conductors.
Nickel enjoys performing as a chamber musician and has performed with the Belgian Brass Soloists, the Asko Ensemble, Ensemble Modern and many others.
In 2008 he formed Brass Consort Köln with his orchestral colleagues, who went on to create a project 'Das Blech Kommt' which was adopted by the WDR as an educational project for schools throughout NRW. The BCK are also popular musicians in the WDR 'Maus' series and have recently created a YouTube video 'First Aid with the Mouse' which encourages young people to learn life saving first aid. Nickel will be going on tour with his BCK colleagues to promote the film in schools. Brass Consort Köln also regularly gives concerts away from their WDR responsibilities.
In 2025 alongside his usual work obligations, Nickel will be appearing as an invited guest at ThaiTEC 2025, LizBrass '25 (Leiria Brass Festival), 2025 Wuhan Low Brass Festival and others, playing with many symphony orchestras including the Brussels Philharmonic, NDR Hamburg, and his 'own' orchestra the WDR Symphony Orchestra and appearing as a soloist with several Dutch groups. In other words 'retirement' has merely meant a slight change in direction.
