German/Norwegian horn player Simen Fegran joined the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in August 2025. Prior to that he held the position of second horn with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra since 2019.
Fegran received his first horn lessons at the age of six with Johannes Theodor Wiemes and was lucky to have several other great teachers in his early years, including Bernhard Obernhuber, Margje Imandt and Donata Freifrau von Knigge. At age fifteen he was accepted in the Institute for the Early Advancement of the Musically Highly Gifted (IFF) at the University of music in Hannover, where he was given advanced training in music theory and conducting, while receiving horn lessons with Markus Maskuniitty.
In 2011, Fegran took up his studies with Michael Höltzel in Rostock and later continued under the guidance of Thomas Hauschild and Bernhard Krug in Leipzig. He gathered early orchestral experience as a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and also held a temporary contract with the Hannover State Opera.
In 2017 Fegran co-founded the Alma Mahler Kammerorchester, bringing together young professional musicians from all of Europe, of which he remained a board member for three years.
Having a passion for teaching, Fegran has given masterclasses at the conservatories in Melbourne and Sydney, the Australian National Academy of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music as well as in Taiwan and South Korea.
Simen is a regular guest musician with some of Europe's leading orchestras, including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2024 he also spent three months playing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.