Harald Hufnagel studied with Emile Cantor at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. Intensive chamber music collaboration with Dirk Mommertz of the Fauré Piano Quartet shaped his musical education, as did courses with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Thomas Riebl, Jürgen Kussmaul, the Mandelring Quartet and Jeunesse Moderne at Schloss Weikersheim.
In 2008 he won the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Prize in Berlin as a member of the Orion Piano Quartet. Chamber music concert tours have taken him to many European countries, Japan, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Harald Hufnagel gained his first orchestral experience in the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Orchestra and then in the Federal Youth Orchestra. As a founding member of the Junge Klangforum Mitte Europa, he worked and performed in many historically significant places in Europe, such as Terezín (Theresienstadt). He was initially with the Bochum Symphony and the Duisburg Philharmonic. In 2011 he joined the Dresden Philharmonic as a violist, and since 2013 he has also been a member of the Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.