The German oboist Hansjörg Schellenberger was born in Munich in 1948. At just seventeen years old, he won his first prize in the Young Musicians Competition in Germany, and thanks to this success, he received a scholarship to further his training at the International Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan.
Later, he continued his studies in Munich with Manfred Clement and attended master classes by Heinz Holliger. During this time, he participated in numerous concerts, mostly dedicated to contemporary music, and received several first prizes in international competitions, including the ARD in Munich and the Culture Awards of Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia.
He was principal oboe of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra during the 1970s and of the Berlin Philharmonic between 1980 and 2001, a period in which he played under the baton of conductors such as Carlo Maria Giulini, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti and Claudio Abbado.
He also devoted himself to chamber music with groups such as the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Group and the Ensemble Wien-Berlin. In 1991 he founded the Berliner-Hadyn concert series and has recorded the Quintets for piano and winds by Beethoven and Mozart, as well as the Trio for piano, oboe and bassoon by Poulanc, with James Levine and Milan Turkovik.
As a conductor, he has been invited by various prestigious orchestras, including the Salzburg Camerata, the National Orchestra of Spain, the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, and the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra of Milan.
Regarding his role as a pedagogue, between 1981 and 1991 he worked as a professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin, was a guest professor at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and since the 2000-2001 academic year he has been a professor of the Oboe Chair at the Reina Sofía School of Music. He is currently also Head of the Wind Department of the International Institute of Chamber Music of Madrid.