Sebastian Führlinger was born into a family of musicians in 1984 and initially studied violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Gerhard Schulz (a member of the former Alban Berg Quartet), Ernst Kovacic and Josef Hell before moving to Hans Peter Ochsenhofer’s viola class.
While still a student he had a successful audition for the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, of which he has been a member since 2012. In 2015 he was accepted as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic. Since then, he has played under the world’s greatest conductors, among them Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Georges Prêtre, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti and Zubin Mehta.
As a soloist he has given sonata recitals in Austria and Japan, performed one of Mozart’s violin concertos at the Vienna Musikverein and, in 2021, appeared at the Salzburg Festival with the Junge Philharmonie Wien as one of the soloists in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante K. 364.
He has been a passionate chamber musician since childhood. He has performed at international festivals and given concerts in Austria’s most prestigious concert venues, such as the Brahms Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, the Gustav Mahler Hall of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Konzerthaus. He has collaborated with chamber music partners such as Yefim Bronfman in Stockholm and Rainer Honeck at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, has performed in Schubert’s String Quintet alongside Gerhard Schulz, and at the Salzburg Festival most recently gave a chamber concert with Yulianna Avdeeva and colleagues from the Vienna Philharmonic.
