Wolfgang Klos

Wolfgang Klos was born in Vienna in 1953 and studied there twice over — the viola at the music academy, from which he took his diploma with distinction in 1977, and law at the university at the same time. Max Rostal taught him; an acquaintance with Ernst Krenek marked him as deeply. He entered the Vienna Symphony in 1975, spent four years in the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, and returned to the Vienna Symphony as solo violist from 1981 to 1989. Since 1981 he has been a member of the Vienna String Trio, whose recordings cover much of the literature written for that combination. Appointed professor of viola at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna in 1989, he became its vice-rector in 2002; the Bulgarian violist Elissaveta Staneva came through his class. As a soloist he has taken the instrument into repertoire it rarely reaches, among it a programme of Nikos Skalkottas shared with the violinist Seina Matsuoka. Austria gave him its Grand Decoration of Honour in 2003. He plays a viola made by Giovanni Battista Ceruti in 1780.