Sebastian Manz (born 1986) is a German clarinetist. He is solo clarinetist in the SWR Symphonieorchester, international soloist and chamber musician. He is also active as an arranger and composer.

Life and work

Manz was born in Hanover, the son of the pianists Wolfgang Manz and Julia Goldstein, daughter of the Soviet violinist Boris Goldstein. At the age of six, Manz was member of a boys' choir in Hanover. He received his first clarinet lessons at the age of seven with Wilfried Berk at the Hanover Music School. From 1994 to 2002, Manz won numerous prizes at Jugend musiziert. In 1997, at the age of eleven, he was accepted as a junior student at the Musikhochschule Lübeck. From 2003 to 2010 he was a regular student there. He studied under Sabine Meyer and Reiner Wehle. In 1999, Manz made his first tour as a soloist to Poland with the orchestra of the Hanover Music School. He also performed at the EXPO 2000 as a soloist. In 2006, Manz was invited to the Schubertiade festival in Japan, where he performed both chamber music and as a soloist. In 2008, Manz won the first prize in clarinet at the ARD International Music Competition, which had not been awarded for 40 years. This was immediately followed by performances with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Symphonieorchester, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and the Collegium Musicum in Basel. Since 2010, he has been solo clarinetist in the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, since 2016 in the SWR Symphonieorchester. In his debut at the Tonhalle Zürich on 4 May 2010 he played Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie conducted by their designated chief conductor Eugene Tzigane. From the 2012–13 to the 2014–15 season he was an artist in the "Junge Wilde" series at the Konzerthaus Dortmund. Manz participates on the "Rhapsody in School" project founded by Lars Vogt, in which classical musicians go to schools to introduce students to their music. In the 2017–2018 season, he debuted with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and the Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra. Manz was invited to the Schwetzingen Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival and Heidelberger Frühling. In the 2021–22 season, he was on an Asia tour with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with concerts in Taiwan, Japan and China. His chamber music partners have been Felix Klieser, Tanja Tetzlaff and Wen Xiao Zheng, performing Beethoven's Septet. Manz played concerts with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Japan. In the 2022–23 season, he was a guest at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. He is also active in the jazz field, predominantly with his own arrangements, which he realises mainly with the jazz musician Sebastian Studnitzky.

Personal life

Manz is married and has a daughter. They live in Ostfildern, Baden-Württemberg.

Discography

Awards