was born in Hamburg in 1957, where he also began his musical training. He continued his studies in Cincinnati, Detmold and at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His major teachers were Bruno Giuranna, Karen Tuttle and Michael Tree. Chamber-music studies with Felix Galimir, Alexander Schneider and the LaSalle-Quartet are sources of inspiration until today.

He has been violist with the Brahms Quartet Hamburg 1975-1980 and with the Ridge Quartet New York from 1981-1984 and has toured since 1976 throughout Europe, the United States and Canada, as well as South America, South East Asia and the Far East.

He has been invited to most european music festivals. such as Avignon, Berlin, Warsaw, Lyon, Korsholm, Slovenia, Schleswig-Holstein and Hitzacker, as well as the Marlboro Festival and Washington D.C.`s Summer Music, where he enjoyed working and performing with Salvatore Accardo, Norbert Brainin, Rainer Kussmaul, Benny Goodman, Heinz Holliger, Truls Mörk, Frans Helmerson, Anner Bylsma and members of the Guarneri-Quartett. As guest violist he frequently joinded the Auryn-Quartet, the Petersen-Quartet , the Fine Arts- and the Vermeer-Quartett.

In 1990 he was appointed professor for viola at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. His teaching activities include masterclasses in many european coutries as well as in the U.S., Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Since 1991, he is a member of the Linos-Ensemble, recording numerous CD’s for cpo and Capriccio and touring in Europe and South East Asia.