With captivating musicality, instinctive stylistic confidence and musical maturity, cellist Maximilian Hornung is conquering the international concert podiums. For his first Sony CD he received the ECHO Klassik Award 2011 as Young Artist of the Year, for the release of Dvo ák’s Cello Concerto with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sebastian Tewinkel the ECHO Klassik 2012 for the “Concert Recording of the Year (19th century in cello)”. In August 2014 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen, and in the same year released a CD of the most important cello works by Richard Strauss with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink, as well as a CD of the cello concertos by Joseph Haydn and Vaja Azarashvili with the Kammerakademie Potsdam under Antonello Manacorda on Sony Classical.
As a soloist, he performs with such renowned orchestras as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under conductors such as Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézét-Séguin, Mariss Jansons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mario Venzago, Bernard Haitink, Manfred Honeck, Antonello Manacorda, Ji í B lohlávek, Heinrich Schiff, Jonathan Nott, Yakov Kreizberg, Krzysztof Urbánski, Robin Ticciati and Semyon Bychkov. His chamber music partners include Anne-Sophie Mutter, Hélène Grimaud, Christian Tetzlaff, Lisa Batiashvili, François Leleux, Yefim Bronfman, Lars Vogt, Jörg Widmann and Tabea Zimmermann. He has been invited by numerous festivals, including the Schwetzinger Festspiele, Schleswig- Holstein Musik Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheingau Musik Festival, Lucerne Festival, Verbier Festival, Ravinia Festival and Hong Kong Festival, and has appeared on stages such as the Berlin, Cologne and Essen Philharmonic Orchestras, the Vienna Musikverein, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and London’s Wigmore Hall. In 2015/2016 he performed the Brahms Double Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons as well as with Lisa Batiashvili and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Yannick Nézét-Séguin, among others. He has also been a guest with the Tonkünstler Orchestra under Hugh Wolff (Elgar) and the Bern Symphony Orchestra under Mario Venzago (Herbert, No. 2), as well as with the Vancouver Recital Society and together with the Arcanto Quartet in Munich and at the Schwetzingen Festival.
Special highlights of his 2016/2017 season are Maximilian Hornung’s orchestral debuts with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under David Zinman (Don Quixote), with the Verdi Orchestra Milan under Jader Bignamini (Dvo ák), with the NFM Symphony Orchestra Wroclaw under Mario Venzago (Schumann), with the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover under Andrew Manze (Brahms Double Concerto with Antje Weithaas), as well as return invitations to the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz under Antonello Manacorda (Shostakovich, no. 1) and to the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana under Nicholas Collon (Saint-Saëns, No. 1). In the fall of 2016, he will make his recital debut at London’s Wigmore Hall. He will also present a cross-section of the cello repertoire as Artist in Residence of the Neubrandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
Maximilian Hornung, born in Augsburg in 1986, received his first cello lessons at the age of eight. His teachers were Eldar Issakadze, Thomas Grossenbacher and David Geringas. After emerging as the winner of the German Music Competition in 2005, he won 1st prize at the ARD Music Competition in 2007 as the cellist of the Tecchler Trio, of which he was a member until 2011. At the age of only 23, he became 1st solo cellist with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and held this position until 2013. Numerous recordings were made for Sony Classical, Genuin, Bridge Records, Linn, NEOS and CPO. Maximilian Hornung is supported and promoted by the Friends of the Anne- Sophie Mutter Foundation and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust in London.