Markus Bruggaier has been a classical horn player at the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden since 1998. He played and taught with the “Polyphonia” chamber music ensemble of the German Symphony Orchestra in various countries around the world. Since 2001 he has been teaching successfully at the renowned Hanns Eisler University of Music and at the orchestra academy at the Staatskapelle Berlin and has given master classes in Italy, Slovenia, Japan and China. His students include numerous solo horn players and professors. Because leaving his children with a planet worth living in is a matter close to his heart, Markus Bruggaier founded the initiative “Orchester des Wandels” (Orchestra of Change) in 2009 as a board member together with colleagues of the Staatskapelle Berlin.

With their self-financed foundation “NaturTon” the musicians support various environmental and climate projects. Their most important project, an ebony project in Madagascar, serves to protect ebony wood used in the making of string instruments. For this purpose, they founded the association “Eben! Holz e.V” together with violin and bow makers in 2014, which over a hundred violin and bow makers have now joined.

In June 2020 he founded the association “Orchester des Wandels Deutschland” as a board member together with musicians from other orchestras, which has set itself the goal of making the orchestral landscape in Germany sustainable. Around twenty orchestras from all over Germany have now joined the initiative.