- Herbers has conducted various symphony orchestras, including the Metropole Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Limburg Symphony Orchestra, the Brabant Orchestra, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and a Stan Kenton Alumni Band in Los Angeles.
- Herbers studied oboe, piano and conducting at the Muzieklyceum Amsterdam.
- In 1990, jazz fanatic Herbers founded the Ebony Band to give composers from the 1920s and 1930s - denounced by the Nazis and forgotten after the war - their deserved place in music history. And in that too he found many wonderful things. He built up an archive with more than six hundred pieces by about one hundred and fifty composers, a treasure that is now cherished by the National Music Institute in The Hague.
- He has been principal oboist with the Dutch Radio Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and, from 1970, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam.
- His latest recording titled Achtung, Aufnahme! , is devoted to little-known works from the 1930s and including first world recordings.
- After his retirement from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2005, he focused more on jazz.
- Herbers received in 1997 the Haarlemse Hogenbijl Prize for his services as a musician and music researcher.
- His Ebony Band was devoted to performance of unknown and forgotten composers active between the two World Wars.
- Herbers taught oboe as a main subject teacher at the Kon. Conservatory in The Hague.
- He played for more than 10 years in the highest class for the hockey team of SCHC (Ned. Champion 1959) and he took part in the first trip of the Dutch Hockey team to India (1962).
- He also gave masterclasses in Banff (Canada), Sapporo (Japan, Pacific Music Festival), Seoul (South Korea) and Guangzhou (China).
- Between 1962-1988 he was member and artstic director of the Dutch Wind Ensemble.
- As soloist he played under the conductors Berio, Harnoncourt, Vonk, Leitner, Haitink, de Waart, van Otterloo, among others.
- "He was a seeker who dared to take risks," said former oboist and conductor Ali Groen. "It meant that sometimes things could go wrong, but his game was always adventurous and when it went well - which it usually did - Werner took you to wonderful places.".
- When his father took him to Mozart's Oboe concerto with Jaap Stotijn as soloist at the age of thirteen, he wanted nothing more than to play that instrument.
- Herbers had a daughter, the actress Katja Herbers, with violinist Vera Beths.
- He was founder of the Ebony Band (Dutch ensemble founded in 1990 consisting of members of the Concertgebouworkest = Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam.
- Herbers conducted various ensembles in Germany, and the US (Capriccio Players, New York).
- Herbers was oboist for many years with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Netherlands Wind Ensemble.
- Herbers was born at the beginning of the war in Bilthoven as the son of two political refugees from Germany.
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