The Austrian trumpeter STEFAN PLANK (1989) graduated from the prestigious Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts – he studied with his father Prof. Johann Plank (who is also the principal trumpet in the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra), under Prof. Joseph Pomberger and Prof. Martin Mühlfellner, as well as in various master classes, such as with Prof. Bo Nilsson, Prof. Carole Dawn Reinhart and Prof. Hakan Hardenberger.
He was trumpeter at the Graz Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra (2014 – 2018), at the City Theatre in Klagenfurt. He has appeared in various projects with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, at the State Opera and Volksoper Wien, and with the Tonkünstler Orchestra – Lower Austria. His concert activity has also taken him to smaller national concert halls such as the Greith-Haus in Styria, the Konzerthaus – Vienna and international festivals such as the Organ Festival in Opava, Czech Republic.
Stefan Plank not only appeared as a soloist with classical and contemporary repertoire – he covered concertos by Torelli, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Telemann, Fach, Vivian, Neruda, Leopold Mozart, Haydn and Hummel, Hindemith, Haroutiunian, Claude Bolin, Henri Tomasi, Giovanni Goedicke, Willy Brandt and others. He is both a composer and an active jazz musician. The piano is his second instrument, which helps him to develop new ideas in so-called improvised music. He has written various pieces, two trumpet concertos, a Mass for orchestra and organ. The symphonic poem The Little Prince marks a high point in his compositional output to date.
In September 2021, with the premiere of his Concerto No. 2 for Trumpet and Jazz Orchestra, he presented his newly developed and patented 4-valve trumpet at the Musikverein Wien, an instrument which enables the transformation of the conventional instrument and extend it by one octave in the tenor and bass ranges.