Maria Milstein - Biography

Maria Milstein received support from BBT between 2016 and 2018. For an up to date biography go to www.ej-arts.com

Moscow-born Maria Milstein, a student of Ilya Grubert (Amsterdam), David Takeno (London) and Augustin Dumay at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, is a prizewinner of major competitions both as a soloist and a chamber musician including Città di Brescia, Premio Rodolfo Lipizer, ARD Competition, Lyon Chamber Music Competition and Kersjes Prize in the Netherlands. In 2016, Maria received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and, in 2018, was awarded the “Dutch Music Prize”, the highest recognition for a classical musician in the Netherlands.

Maria appears as a soloist with, amongst others, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Hague Philharmonic and Amsterdam Sinfonietta. She works with conductors such as Giancarlo Guerrero, the late Reinbert de Leeuw, Tomáš Netopil, Vasily Petrenko and Otto Tausk.

The Milstein Duo, a partnership with her pianist sister, Nathalia, has released two albums – the BBT-supported La Sonate de Vinteuil, voted “best album of 2017” by the Dutch press and, in 2019, Ravel Voyageur, which received a Diapason d’Or. Her Sounds of War CD with pianist Hanna Shybayeva won the Edison Klassiek 2015 as “best chamber music album”.

Maria is a founding member of the Van Baerle Trio with pianist (fellow BBT alumnus) Hannes Minnaar and cellist
Gideon den Herder. After winning the ARD Competition and the Lyon Chamber Music Competition, the Trio participated on the ECHO Rising Stars Tour in 2014. Their extensive discography now includes the complete works of Beethoven for piano trio, including the Triple Concerto with the Residentie Orchestra under the baton of Jan Willem de Vriend.

Since 2014 Maria has taught at the Amsterdam Conservatory. With her husband, Mathieuvan Bellen, violinist of the Busch Trio, the couple realised their chamber music ‘dream’ in 2020 and established MuziekHaven Zaandam, a performance and recording space where musicians can retreat to devote themselves fully to their music.

Last updated: November 2020

It is an incredible honour for me to have been chosen for a BBT Fellowship in 2016. The Fellowship allowed me to finally realise a project I have been cherishing for some years –recording with my sister pianist Nathalia, focusing on a programme of French music around Marcel Proust and his masterpiece, ‘À la recherche du temps perdu.’ I am hugely grateful for the incredible support and guidance of the BBT team in the past year, and look forward immensely to the realisation of my plan this coming year!

Photographs by Marco Borggreve