Jens Peter Maintz

Jens Peter Maintz enjoys a high reputation for his versatility and commitment as a soloist, chamber musician, and cello teacher. Originally from Hamburg, he studied with David Geringas and received master classes from leading cellists such as Heinrich Schiff, Boris Pergamenschikow, Frans Helmerson, and Siegfried Palm. He was also particularly influenced by his chamber music teachers Uwe-Martin Haiberg and Walter Levin.
In 1994, he won first prize at the ARD International Competition, which had not been awarded to a cellist for 17 years.
Over time, he has accumulated valuable experience as principal cellist of the German Symphony Orchestra of Berlin. He has also traveled the world as a member of the Fontenay Trio. Since 2006, he has been the principal cello of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra at the invitation of Claudio Abbado.
In his career as a soloist, he has come into contact with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Herbert Blomstedt, Marek Janowski, Dmitry Kitajenko, Franz Welser-Möst, Reinhard Goebel, and Bobby McFerrin, and has performed with orchestras such as the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the MDR Symphony Orchestra of Leipzig, The Hague, and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Furthermore, in addition to the classical repertoire, Jens Peter Maintz is familiar with the contemporary repertoire from Isang Yun to Georg Friedrich Haas.Since 2004, he has been a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, where his cello classes have been exceptionally successful. Many of his students have won important international awards or hold key positions in leading orchestras.

He is also highly sought after as a chamber musician. He is a member of the prestigious concert series “Spectrum Concerts Berlin” and often plays with musicians such as Janine Jansen, Boris Brovtsyn, Torleif Thedéen, Hélène Grimaud, Kolja Blacher, Isabelle Faust, Antoine Tamestit, and the Artemis, Carmina, and Auryn Quartets. He founded the cello duo “Cello Duelo” with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt 25 years ago. Together they have performed at the most important festivals in the world, such as Kronberg, the Cello Biennial in Amsterdam, and the Piatigorsky.He won an ECHO-Klassik award for his Sony Classical recording of works by Bach, Dutilleux, and Kodály for solo cello. With the Berlin Classics label, he has recorded Haydn’s cello concertos with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, an album that was very well received by critics.
He has been a professor at the Aline Foriel-Destezet Cello Chair of the Reina Sofía School of Music since 2018.
He plays an “Ex-Servais” by Giovanni Grancino made in 1697.