German clarinetist Maja Pawelke joined the State Orchestra of Lower Saxony in Hanover as associate principal clarinetist in 2011. As a student of Ralph Manno she graduate from the Music Conservatory of Cologne and earned her masters degree at The Juilliard School studying with Charles Neidich. She was sponsored by the German Music Foundation and by the Rotary Foundation as an Ambassadorial Scholar. For further musical studies, she participated in master classes with Johannes Peitz, Francois Benda, Karl Leister, Jörg Widmann, Johannes Gmeinder, Suzanne Stephens and Franklin Cohen.

 

Maja is a laureate of the ‚International Beijing Music Competition for Clarinet‘ in China and holds the Louis Spohr award Kassel. She was also awarded 2nd prize with the ensemble Trio Thalia at the ‚IV. International Johannes Brahms Chamber Music Competition Gdansk’ in Poland and the special price for the outstanding performance of a piece written by Brahms.

 

Highlights of her performance activities in contemporary music were the world premiere and the CD recording of ‚Right Eyebrow Dance‘ for clarinets, synthesizer and percussion by Karlheinz Stockhausen and the world premiere of ‚Celestial Object II‘ by Matthias Pintscher at the Zermatt Festival with members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. As a committed  and longstanding musical pedagogue, she has been a guest lecturer for high clarinet at the Music Conservatory in Hanover since 2013.