Born in Hannover (Germany), KARSTEN DOBERS studied at Munich Musikhochschule and at Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. His teachers were Franz Beyer, Siegfried Fühlinger, Sandor Végh, Thomas Riebl and Günter Pichler. Dobers has formed part of Vienna RSO, of the Orchestra and Chamber Music Ensemble of Vienna Volksoper, and of the “Alt-Wien-Quartett”. He has also made appearances with Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), Klangforum Wien (Vienna), the Quatuor Ebène (Paris) and the Quatuor Danel (Brussels). He has also served as music director of the symphony orchestras in the conservatories of Pau and Bayonne. From 1994 to 1997 he was Principal Viola of the Basque National Symphony Orchestra (San Sebastián). A founding member of the Novalis Quartet (Munich, 2003), Karsten Dobers cultivates the art of the string quartet with true passion. In 2009 he founded the ISASI QUARTET, which went on to make the world premiere recording on three CDs of the complete string quartets of Andrés Isasi (1890-1940), a widely hailed release on Naxos International. With organist Loïc Mallié, Karsten Dobers has recorded Harold in Italy by Hector Berlioz in a world première version for viola and organ, produced by the French record label Hortus. As a chamber musician, Dobers has shared the podium with eminent musicians such as Pavel Vernikov, Philippe Graffin, Yuzuko Horigome, Roland Daugareil, Jérôme Pernôo, Pascal Devoyon, Alain Meunier, Sung-Won Young and Daejin Kim, in recordings for radio-television broadcasting entities in Germany (HR, BR), Austria (ORF), Spain (RNE Radio Clásica, EITB), South Korea (KBS) and Belgium (VRT). After having taught viola at the conservatory of Pau in Southwest France, Dobers was appointed in 2002 as a full-time faculty member of Musikene, the Superior Music Academy of the Basque Country in San Sebastian (Spain), where he now teaches chamber music and viola orchestra repertoire. Karsten Dobers has given a great number of masterclassses in Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Estonia, Spain, the US, China and Cuba. He plays a viola made by Romeo Antoniazzi in 1910 and a new viola designed and created for him by Lionel Enard in 2015.