Radovan Vlatkovic

Horn soloist

One of the leading instrumentalists of his generation, Radovan Vlatković has built a distinguished career as a soloist, recording artist, and educator, widely credited with popularizing the horn on the global stage. Born in Zagreb in 1962, he studied at the Zagreb Academy of Music with Professor Prerad Detiček and later with Professor Michael Höltzel at the Music Academy in Detmold, Germany. His rise to prominence was cemented by numerous competition victories, notably the Premio Ancona in 1979 and the ARD Competition in Munich in 1983—the first horn player to win that prize in fourteen years.

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Vlatković served as Principal Horn with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin (now Deutsches Symphonie Orchester) from 1982 to 1990 under Riccardo Chailly and Vladimir Ashkenazy. He subsequently held professorships at the Stuttgart Musikhochschule (1992–1998) and the Mozarteum in Salzburg (from 1998). Since 2000, he has also held the Horn Chair “Canon” at the Queen Sofía School in Madrid. He has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras worldwide, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony, BBC Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and orchestras across Europe, Japan, and Australia.

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An avid chamber musician, Vlatković has performed at prestigious festivals such as Lockenhaus, Marlboro, Mondsee, and Kuhmo, collaborating with artists like András Schiff, Heinz Holliger, and Gidon Kremer. He has given premieres of works by Elliott Carter, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Krzysztof Penderecki, who wrote a Horn Concerto for him, premiered in 2008. He was Artistic Director of the Maribor Chamber Music Festival (2000–2003) and held an artist-in-residence position with Milan’s Verdi Orchestra.

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His extensive discography includes concertos by Mozart and Strauss with the English Chamber Orchestra and Jeffrey Tate, works by Saint-Saëns, Britten’s Serenade, and chamber music on major labels such as EMI, Decca, DG, and Philips. In 2014, he received an Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music (Hon RAM), an honour limited to 300 distinguished musicians worldwide. Vlatković plays a Paxman Model 20 M full double horn.

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