Reinhold Nowotny

Reinhold Nowotny, born in 1965, is a true Viennese with a musical family spanning several generations. (His great-grandfather and great-grandfather's brother played clarinet and conducted a brass band in Kernei, a town in the Danube Swabian region.) His musical training began in the 1970s, initially on the then-fashionable electric organ. Shortly thereafter, he began taking clarinet and saxophone lessons with various teachers, most recently with Professor Wilfried Gottwald of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

After graduating from high school, he began studying musicology, completed his compulsory military service with the Vienna Guards Band, and started teaching himself. He has been playing brass band music since the age of thirteen with the Alpenklang Traditional Costume Band – Vienna Brass Band, which he took over as musical director in 1993 after the death of bandmaster Paul Kyselka. From 1989 to 1997, he worked as a music school teacher in Poysdorf, and in his later years also as bandmaster of the Poysdorf and Surrounding Area Music Association and as director of the music school.

Returning to Vienna in 1999, he took over the musical direction of the Vienna Clarinet Orchestra, founded by Prof. Kurt Schmid, and also performs as a dance musician. At the same time, he began working with the newly founded cabaret troupe "Scherzinfarkt" (Joke Attack).

In December 1999, he stepped in at short notice to conduct the Hoch- und Deutschmeister Band. From this guest appearance arose a new, multifaceted life's work that has now lasted for over twenty years (including a large collection of recordings): to continue the musical legacy of the Hoch- und Deutschmeister in order to build upon the great successes of past decades and centuries. During this time, the "Burgmusik" (castle music) in the Vienna Hofburg was revived after decades of oblivion, and the 100th anniversary of Carl Michael Ziehrer's death was duly commemorated in 2022 with a double concert by the Original Hoch- und Deutschmeister and the Vienna Guards Band!