Kai Strobel is the winner of the First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 68th International ARD Music Competition in 2019.
Born in 1992, the percussionist has performed as a soloist with, among others, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana Lugano, the Vallès Symphony Orchestra, the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Lower Austria, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra Ankara, the Musicum Collegium Basel and the St Petersburg State Orchestra.
As a sought-after chamber musician, he has made numerous recordings, including with the Argentine bandoneonist and composer Omar Massa.
Kai Strobel is Professor of Percussion at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland, and Visiting Professor at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. In the 2025/26 academic year, he was Artist-in-Residence at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, followed by another Residency at the HMTM Hanover.
He is regularly invited to perform and give masterclasses, including at the Grafenegg Academy, the Jianli Percussion Festival in Beijing, the JIPA Academy in Korea, and at universities such as the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig, Mt San Antonio College in Los Angeles, the Leeds Conservatoire, the Royal Northern College of Music and the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest.
Together with his brother Marc Strobel, he founded the Boum Percussion Academy, a music course for percussion students from all over the world, which has been held annually in the Stuttgart region since 2021.