Maja Bogdanović
Maja Bogdanović (born Маја Богдановић, in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia) is a Serbian-French Paris based cellist.
After having won the 2011 October Safran Foundation Prize, Bogdanović gave a recital at the Carnegie Hall in New York city. This recital was described in The Strad magazine as "a performance of exceptional beauty of sound and a great maturity of interpretation, accompanied by a secure technique". In the 2012 season, she performed in Belgrade at Krszysztof Penderecki's Second Cello Concerto with the composer conducting. Following this, Maja toured Mexico with Aguascalientes and Monterrey orchestras, giving recitals in French Polynesia, a concert in the Salle Pleyel in Paris, and performed in London with the 1st Schostakovitch Concerto, at the Sydenham Music Festival. Maja followed this with tours in South Korea with pianist Masha Belooussova, she is due to go on tour in South America and will perform at summer festivals in the Netherlands, France and Serbia.
In 2007, she won first prize in the Aldo Parisot International Cello Competition in South Korea, second prize and the audience award at the Gaspard Cassado Competition in Japan in 2006, where she performed with Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. She was awarded the 3rd prize at the Jeunesses Musicales competition in Belgrade in 2005, as well as 3 special prizes.
Maja has played with the Serbian Radio Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic, Munchenner kammerorchester, St George Strings, St Bartholomew orchestra, Aguascalientes Symphony, Monterrey Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Wonju Philharmonic, Sejong soloists and Garde Republicaine.
Maja is very interested in contemporary music and has worked with many composers, such as K. Penderecki, S. Gubaidulina, P. Hersant, N. Bacri and I. Jevtic. Her chamber music partners throughout many concerts and festivals include pianists Masha Belooussova, Jean Claude Vanden Eynden, Julien Gernay, Sanja and Lidija Bizjak violinists Nemanja Radulovic, Gil Sharon, Grigory Zhislin, violist Vladimir Mendelssohn, cellists Michel Strauss and Alain Meunier, clarinettists Philippe Berrod, Sandrine Vasseur as well as string quartets Talich and Ebene.
Maja Bogdanovic was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in the former Yugoslavia. After finishing studies at the Kosta Manojlovic Music School, she went to Paris at the age of 16 to Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse, where she graduated and won 1st prize for cello and chamber music. In Paris, where she now lives, she studied in the class of Michel Strauss, and post graduated studies with Itamar Golan and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. She continued the studies in UDK of Berlin with Jens Peter Maintz.