Biography
Cellist Maja Bogdanovic maintains a wide-ranging repertory while forging particularly close ties to living composers. She maintains an active career across France, the United States, and Amsterdam, the city she shares with her husband and children.
Born in Belgrade in 1982, when the city still belonged to Yugoslavia, Bogdanovic spent her childhood in the Zemun district. Although both parents practiced medicine, they delegated the search for musical ability within the family to a relative, through whom she first encountered the cello. Instruction began at Belgrade’s Kosta Manojlovic Music School under Nada Jovanovic. Early competition successes quickly followed in Serbia and extended to the Czech Republic, Austria, France, and Italy. At sixteen she traveled to Paris, where she gained admission to the Conservatoire; her mother sold the family’s Belgrade apartment to cover tuition costs. After completing her studies there with highest honors, she received a German Foreign Exchange Scholarship that took her to Berlin’s University of the Arts and instruction with Jens Peter Maintz. Additional guidance came from Bernard Greenhouse, Alban Gerhardt, Young-Chang Cho, and Heinrich Schiff.
She became a member of the Rodrieg Ensemble, appearing on its 2013 release Holy War X. Two years later she issued her first solo recording with England’s Orchestra of the Swan on the Nimbus label, presenting Philip Sawyers’s Cello Concerto. Subsequent engagements as soloist have included the Berlin Symphony, the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich, the Tokyo Philharmonic, and other leading ensembles throughout Europe and farther afield. In the United States she earned acclaim for her Carnegie Hall debut, maintained a part-time residence in Chicago, and appeared with the Lubbock and Spokane Symphony Orchestras. She has given premieres of works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Eric Tanguy, and Sawyers, yet her closest association remains with Krzysztof Penderecki; she performed his Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra under the composer’s direction and recorded the piece for the Dux label in 2020. In 2023 she joined Serbia’s RTS Symphony Orchestra for a Challenge Classics recording of the Lalo and Saint-Saëns cello concertos.
Born in Belgrade in 1982, when the city still belonged to Yugoslavia, Bogdanovic spent her childhood in the Zemun district. Although both parents practiced medicine, they delegated the search for musical ability within the family to a relative, through whom she first encountered the cello. Instruction began at Belgrade’s Kosta Manojlovic Music School under Nada Jovanovic. Early competition successes quickly followed in Serbia and extended to the Czech Republic, Austria, France, and Italy. At sixteen she traveled to Paris, where she gained admission to the Conservatoire; her mother sold the family’s Belgrade apartment to cover tuition costs. After completing her studies there with highest honors, she received a German Foreign Exchange Scholarship that took her to Berlin’s University of the Arts and instruction with Jens Peter Maintz. Additional guidance came from Bernard Greenhouse, Alban Gerhardt, Young-Chang Cho, and Heinrich Schiff.
She became a member of the Rodrieg Ensemble, appearing on its 2013 release Holy War X. Two years later she issued her first solo recording with England’s Orchestra of the Swan on the Nimbus label, presenting Philip Sawyers’s Cello Concerto. Subsequent engagements as soloist have included the Berlin Symphony, the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich, the Tokyo Philharmonic, and other leading ensembles throughout Europe and farther afield. In the United States she earned acclaim for her Carnegie Hall debut, maintained a part-time residence in Chicago, and appeared with the Lubbock and Spokane Symphony Orchestras. She has given premieres of works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Eric Tanguy, and Sawyers, yet her closest association remains with Krzysztof Penderecki; she performed his Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra under the composer’s direction and recorded the piece for the Dux label in 2020. In 2023 she joined Serbia’s RTS Symphony Orchestra for a Challenge Classics recording of the Lalo and Saint-Saëns cello concertos.
Albums
