German clarinetist Maja Pawelke is active both as a performer and a teacher at the highest professional level. She joined the State Orchestra of Lower Saxony in Hannover as associate principal clarinetist in 2011 and continues to dedicate much of her musical life to orchestral clarinet playing, appearing regularly as a guest in orchestras such as the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and the NRD Radiophilhamonie Hanover. Maja is also recognised as a consummate chamber musician, performing internationally in Carnegie Hall in New York, the Beijing Concert Hall, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf as well as at the Zermatt Festival with Sharoun Ensemble der Berliner Philharmoniker. As a member of Trio Thaleia, she is a laureate at the International Johannes Brahms Chamber Music Competition in Gdansk in 2006.

 

In addition Maja is active in the field of new and contemporary music, and participated in first performances and recordings of pieces by composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen und Matthias Pintscher, with the composers present.

 

Born in Wuppertal in 1982, Maja began her studies with Ralph Manno as a precollege student at the Music Conservatory in Cologne in 2000 and received her artist diploma in 2010. As an Ambassadorial Scholar of Rotary International and a holder of the Gerd Bucerius Stipend from the German Music Foundation she was a student of Charles Neidich at The Juilliard School in New York and was awarded her MA in 2009.

 

Maja has appeared as a soloist with several orchestras, such as Bergische Sinfoniker, Sinfonietta Wuppertal,  Ford- Orchester Köln and the China Philharmonic Orchestra. She was a prize winner at the Beijing International Music Competition and a recipient of the Louis Spohr award Kassel.

 

As a committed and longstanding musical pedagogue, Maja has taught continuously for close to 20 years, and has been a guest lecturer for high clarinet at the Music Conservatory in Hanover since 2013.