Andreas Ottensamer, child of an Austro-Hungarian family of musicians, received his first piano lessons when he was four, and in 1999 began studying cello in his home town at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, changing to the clarinet under Johann Hindler in 2003. He also studied at Harvard University in the United States.

Andreas Ottensamer gained his first orchestral position as a substitute in the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic and as a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. In 2009 he interrupted his studies of the “liberal arts” at Harvard University to become a scholar of the Orchestra Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. From July 2010 to February 2011, he was a member of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin as principal clarinetist. In March 2011, he assumed the same position with the Berliner Philharmoniker.