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 2010/11 season, Sebastian Manz appears with such orchestras as the Munich Symphony Orchestra, North German Philharmonic Rostock and the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra of Heilbronn; at the festivals in Bad Kissingen and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and in various chamber music groups at concerts in Munich, Ravensburg, Berlin, Basel, Tunis and Nice.
08/2010
Sebastian Manz is playing on a Herbert Wurlitzer Klarinette using reeds of Arundos – type “Aida”
During April 16 and 18 Sebastian Manz and his piano partner Martin Klett will do as “Duo Riul” their first CD recording together in Berlin.
Sebastian Manz will make his first appearance in Salzburg's Festspielhaus with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie under the direction of Simon Gaudenz as the soloist in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
Sebastian Manz will be heard in Jean Francaix's Clarinet Concerto on BR-Klassik. From 10.05 am, Bavarian Radio's classical music programme will be broadcasting the live recording of the Munich concert of January 6.
Sebastian Manz is active in the “Rhapsody in School” project. Begun on the initiative of pianist Lars Vogt, the aim is for leading artists to visit schools and get children and teenagers interested and enthusiastic about music. Sebastian Manz's first school visit will be in Hof (Bavaria).
Jean Francaix's Clarinet Concerto of 1967 is one of the most challenging in the clarinet literature. Sebastian Manz is playing it with the Bavarian Youth Orchestra for the first time, in Neumarkt, Weiden, Munich, Rosenheim and Sulzbach-Rosenberg.
From December 3 to 12, Sebastian Manz is touring with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie under the direction of Simon Gudenz in Minden, Herford, Bad Salzuflen, Detmold, Wilhelmshaven and Paderborn. The programme features Mozart's Clarinet Concerto
The virtuoso concerto by Julius Rietz (1812–1877), a close friend of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and conductor at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, is a true rediscovery for the clarinet repertoire. Sebastian Manz played it for the first time on November 10 and 11 in Solingen and Remscheid respectively with the Bergisch Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Kuhn.
“ … The F minor Sonata op. 120/1 [Brahms] in particular does not often come across with such immediacy and so remote from weary late-work sentimentality …”
Kieler Nachrichten, November 11, 2008