Biography

In 2011 Sebastian Manz has been chosen to receive the ECHO Klassik in the category “Newcomer of the Year”.

In September 2008, at the age of 22, Sebastian Manz sensationally not only won the 1st Prize at the renowned ARD International Music Competition in Munich, which had not been awarded for 40 years, but also the coveted audience prize and other special awards. For the pupil of Sabine Meyer this was directly followed by a televised performance with the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, as well as appearances with the RSO Stuttgart, German Radio Philharmonic Kaiserslautern-Saarbrücken, Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra, Northwest German Philharmonic and the Collegium Musicum in Basel.

Just a few months earlier he and his piano partner Martin Klett had also won the German Music Competition of the Deutsche Musikrat as “Duo Riul” and performed over 30 concerts in the 2009/10 season together.

Sebastian Manz was born in 1986 in Hanover, the son of pianists Julia Goldstein and Wolfgang Manz, the grandson of violinist Boris Goldstein. He joined the Hanover Boys' Choir at the age of six and made the acquaintance of great musical personalities like John Eliot Gardiner and Leonard Slatkin. He took his first clarinet lessons with Wilfried Berk at the age of seven, was admitted as a junior student into the class of Sabine Meyer and Reiner Wehle at the age of 11 and continued as a full student at the age of 17 at the College of Music in Lübeck.

Sebastian Manz has been the recipient of significant prizes and scholarships from various foundations and societys. He embarked upon his first tour as a soloist at the age of 13 with the orchestra of the College of Music in Hanover and was also a member of the Young German Philharmonic. Some of the orchestras he has performed with as soloist since are the Göttingen, Nürnberg, Hof and Munich Symphony Orchestras, the State Orchestra of Darmstadt, the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra of Heilbronn and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.

As an enthusiastic chamber musician, Sebastian Manz is a sought after partner and in the last season appeared at the festivals in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Ludwigsburg, Rheingau, Mainz, and Heidelberg. In 2006 Sebastian Manz was invited to take part in the Schubertiade festival in Japan.

In the 2011/12 season, Sebastian Manz will appear as soloist with a number of ensembles including the Bergische Symphoniker, the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Anhalt Philharmonic of Dessau and the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra of Stuttgart and he will be a guest artist at the festivals in Salzburg, Hitzacker, Weimar, Lucerne and Heidelberg. In addition, he will appear on stage in a number of different chamber-music formations in Düsseldorf, Baden-Baden, Vienna and Salzburg.

Alongside his concert work, Sebastian Manz has been active for some time in the “Rhapsody in School” organization founded by Lars Vogt, which is committed to bringing classical music into schools.

08/2011

Sebastian Manz is playing on a Herbert Wurlitzer Klarinette using reeds of Arundos – type “Aida”