Jens Peter Maintz

Jens Peter Maintz enjoys an outstanding reputation as a versatile soloist and a highly sought-after chamber musician. In 1994, he won First Prize in the ARD International Music Competition, which had previously not been awarded to a cellist for 17 years.

As a soloist, he has appeared  with such renowned orchestras as the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig MDR Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Den Haag Residenzorchester, and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Marek Janowski, Dmitry Kitajenko, Franz Welser-Möst, Reinhard Goebel and Bobby McFerrin, to name but a few. He has appeared in prestigious festivals, like the Kronberg Festival, the Cello Biennale Amsterdam, and the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, and alongside classical repertoire, he has performed numerous works by contemporary composers from Isang Yun to Georg Friedrich Haas.

Jens Peter Maintz gathered several years of valuable orchestral experience as principal cello of the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, and travelled the world as a member of the renowned Trio Fontenay. Since 2006, he has been principal cello of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, on the invitation of Claudio Abbado.

For his Sony Classical CD of solo works by Bach, Dutilleux and Kodaly, Jens Peter Maintz won an ECHO-Klassik award. His highly acclaimed recording of Haydn’s cello concertos with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen was released on the Berlin Classics label.

Jens Peter Maintz plays the ‘Ex-Servais’ cello made by Giovanni Grancino in 1697.