Born in 1987, Swiss oboist Simon Sommerhalder studied with Adriano Mondini in Como, with Hans Elhorst in Lugano and in Lübeck under Diethelm Jonas. Already as a teenager, he performed internationally both as an oboist and playing the recorder.

After winning national youth music competitions in Germany and Switzerland, Simon was a finalist in the 2006 Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians in Vienna. He went on to receive an Echo Klassik award for his recording of Ponchielli's Capriccio di Amilcare in 2012.

Simon has been a member of Claudio Abbado's Mozart Orchestra in Bologna, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana under Lorin Maazel and Zubin Mehta, and the Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome under Antonio Pappano. In 2008 he was appointed principal cor anglais of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly, and became a member of its wind quintet in 2016. Simon Sommenhalder joined the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande as principal oboe in 2020.