At the age of 14, the young Dutch cellist Mare Keja won the Princess Christina Competition, after which her career continued to flourish on the international stage. After being awarded the international masterclass prize—in addition to the national masterclass prize and the Peter the Great Prize—she had the opportunity to continue her studies with Russian cellist Ivan Monighetti in Basel, and she is currently studying with him in Madrid at La Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía. She receives a scholarship from the Fundación Albéniz and AIE Becas.
Last summer, she performed E. Elgar’s Cello Concerto in Berlin with the GCO under the direction of David Geringas. She had previously performed Khachaturian’s Cello Concerto with the Drents Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, Mare received the Drenthe Talent Award for Culture for her achievements as a young performer.
Her performances have taken place at many venues, including the Spiegelzaal at the Concertgebouw (broadcast live on Radio 4), De Nieuwe Kolk in Assen, the Oranjewoud Festival, Kunstkring Ruurlo, Stichting Rolderconcerten, the Spiegelkerk in Bussum, the Goede Rede concerts in Almere, and the Harmonie in Leeuwarden.
She has taken masterclasses with, among others, David Geringas, Michel Strauss, and the American cellist Amir Eldan. As a passionate chamber musician, she was a member of the Dvořák Quartet under the mentorship of Heime Müller, the Trio Malibrán coached by Márta Gulyás, and the Mutua Madrileña Fundación Group. She performed with the Freixenet Orchestra, conducted by Péter Csaba, at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid.
Mare was recognized as an exceptional talent at a young age; she began playing the cello at age 3 and was admitted to the Young Talent Class at the Prince Claus Conservatory under Corine ’t Hoen in Groningen at age 10. At age 7, Mare reached the finals of the Haydn Music Festival, and in 2016 she won the Haydn Music Festival. In addition to the jury prize and the audience prize, she also received the HJSO Solo Prize.
At the festive opening of the Drents Museum’s new Russian exhibition, Mare performed Saint-Saëns’s *The Swan* at the Nieuwe Kolk in Assen, together with ballet dancer Anneroos Renkema. She performed as a soloist with the Haydn Youth String Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s “Andante Cantabile,” with which she went on tour in Bosnia and Italy in the summer of 2019. She also took part in the Classic Express and performed with Wibi Soerjadi and the Netherlands Youth Orchestra, playing Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5 at the Christmas Music Gala, which was broadcast on television.
She currently plays a beautiful cello from Scotland dating from 1830, which she has on loan from the Musical Instrument Fund. Until recently, she played a cello made of willow wood by the Groningen-based violin and cello maker Hendrik Woldring.
