Juri Vallentin, born in 1990 in Mainz, started his musical education at the early age of five years with singing lessons and changed to the oboe later on. He studied at the Nuremberg Hochschule für Musik with Prof. Clara Dent-Bogányi and at the prestigious Paris Conservatoire with Prof. Jacques Tys, where he was the first external student to be directly admitted to the master’s degree program and graduated with highest honors.

In 2019 he was prizewinner of the XVI. International Tchaikovsky Competition in St. Petersburg, the first oboist in history of this internationally most renowned competition. In 2017, he was awarded the main prize as well as the audience award of the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb (German Music Competition) at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Already before, he was awarded prizes of major international competitions, including the International Oboe Competition of Japan (Sony), 2015 in Tokyo, the International Oboe and Bassoon Competition in Muri, Switzerland 2016, the IDRS Young Artist’s Competition, USA 2012, and the Academic Oboe and Bassoon Competition in Łódź, Poland 2014. Due to these achievements, he holds scholarships of the prestigious foundations Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and was admitted to the Bundesauswahl Konzerte Junger Künstler program.

As a student he was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra and nowadays, he makes guest appearances as principal oboe at the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester Munich, the Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester, the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, amongst others. Since 2015, he is principal oboe of the Niedersächsisches Staatsorchester Hannover at the Hanover State Opera.

As soloist he appeared with orchestras in Germany and abroad like the Beethoven-Orchester Bonn, the Niedersächsisches Staatsorchester Hannover, the Mariinsky-Orchestra St. Petersburg, the Münchner Kammerorchester, the Staatskapelle Halle, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Argovia Philharmonic or the Gunma Symphony Orchestra and was invited to international festivals like the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Davos Festival or the Kurt-Weill-Fest. Radio productions with the BR, the SWR and the NDR document his artistic work.

In autumn 2018, his debut CD “BRIDGES”, highly acclaimed by audience and critics (WDR3, HR, RBB, SZ, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and others) was released on the Leipzig-based label Genuin.