Gottfried Engels studied doublebass with Paul Breuer at the Musikhochschule Köln. Conducting he studied with Gregor Schmitt-Bohn and Salvador Mas Conde. Actually he is member of the Düsseldorf Symphony and Professor for doublebass at the Music Universities in Cologne and Düsseldorf. Additionally he played regularly in chamber Orchestras like German Bach Soloists and in ancient Music Orchestras like Collegium Aureum, Capella Colloniensis and German Haendel Soloists. Chamber Music he already performed with Rainer and Jürgen Kussmaul, Alwin Bauer, Boris Pergamentschikoff, Verdi-Quartet, Arcadia-Trio and many others. His Repertoire includes works like Schubert's Trout-Quintett and Octet, Beethoven's Septet und many other pieces from Duo and Trio till Nonett.
As Soloist he appears regularly in Recitals and concerts with different programs. His Repertoire includes sonatas by Eccles, Telemann, Vivaldi, Marcello, Mišek, Schubert, Hindemith and Proto; pieces by Frescobaldi, Dragonetti, Paganini, Bottesini, Koussevitzky, Gliere, Klebe, Schröder, Leistner-Mayer, Huber, Fuchs und Henze; Concertos by Capuzzi, Dragonetti, Dittersdorf, van Hall, Koussevitzky, Bottesini and Françaix. With orchestra he performed the concertos by Dittersdorf, Bottesini, Koussevitzky and Françaix. Master classes and courses for bass he gave in Austin, Belo Horizonte, Boulder, Brasilia, Caracas, Cincinnati, Houston, Iowa, Los Angeles, New York, Porto, Quito, Sao Paulo, Wroclaw, Tokyo and other places. He already played under the direction of Nicolaus Harnoncourt, Bernhard Klee, Aldo Ceccato, David Shallon, Salvador Mas Conde, Hans Wallat, John Fiore and many others.
As conductor Gottfried Engels worked yet with different Orchestras in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil and Germany. His repertoire includes mainly pieces of the so called German repertoire (Bach, Händel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler), as well as Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky and others. He loves to perform pieces by Ginastera, Carreno, Romero, Villa Lobos and other Latin-American composers, which he knows from his many trips to South-America. As well he conducted special projects of the Düsseldorf Symphony with Klaus Doldinger at the Düsseldorf Jazz Rally, with the Rock singer Doro Pesch in the Tonhalle and in some pre-game shows of the Düsseldorf Rhein-Fire. He conducted the Industrial Symphony Orchestra in a concert with the pop band Orange Blue. 2004 he had again two concerts with the Düsseldorf Symphony. 2002 and 2003 he conducted the Festival orchestra of the International Summer course in Brasilia, Brazil; in 2003 and 2004 he conducted the Radio Orchestra of Sao Paulo and some smaller orchestras in Brazil and gave conducting master classes at the University of Music in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. 2005 he conducted the orchestra of Satu Mare, Romania. Gottfried Engels served at the board of directors of the ISB since 2002.