Arne Zeller

Being the winner of the Grand Prix and audience prize of the Budapest International Cello Competition 2025 and the first prize of the 40^th International Pablo Casals Award 2024, cellist Arne Zeller, born 4^thOctober, 2006, is increasingly gaining international attention and is giving concerts around Europe, North America and Asia.

He started playing the cello at the age of six and joined the class of Peter Bruns at the “Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix-Mendelssohn-Bartholdy“ Leipzig as a junior student aged 14. Since October 2024 he is a bachelor student in the class of Frans Helmerson at Kronberg Academy. His studies are enabled by the Dorothea Neuhaus patronage.  Masterclasses with Jens Peter Maintz on regular basis have been contributing additional important artistic impulses since 2021. 

Arne debuted with Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations at 13 years of age, soloistic performances followed with the Baden-Baden Philharmonics, Euro Symphony Orchestra, the Kremerata Baltica, Ferenc Liszt Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), and the Budapest National Philharmonics. In 2023 he also soloed several times with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra at the “hr-schooltour”, and the University Orchestra Mainz in projects for schools, in order to convey classical music closer to young people.

In addition to his performances as a soloist, Arne Zeller regularly plays public concerts in Germany and abroad in solo recitals and varying chamber music formations, for example at the Moritzburg Festival, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Con Spirito Festival Leipzig, the Rheingau Musik Festival, the Nymphenburger Sommer, the Bachwoche Ansbach, the Berner Seefestspiele and the Kronberg Festivals.

In this context he was privileged to already perform together with artists like Gidon Kremer, Antje Weithaas, Lawrence Power, Jens-Peter Maintz, Peter Bruns, Valentin Erben, Torleif Thedéen and the Eliot Quartett playing venues like the Musikverein Wien, the Tonhalle Zürich, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the  Laeiszhalle Hamburg, the Liszt Academy Budapest, in the Conservatoire de musique de Genève or the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. 

In 2024 he was junior artist of Kronberg’s biannual project “Chamber Music Connects the World” and collected additional valuable experience in chamber music projects like the “Geneva String Academy”, the Henle Kammermusik Akademie and Verbier Festival’s soloist program.

Together with the Violinist Leonhard Baumgartner and the pianist Simon Haje he forms the „Pantaleon Piano Trio“ since 2024, which has been on a very successful concert tour staging in Liechtenstein, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and the U.S.A. in 2025. From 2021 to 2024 he was member of the highly awarded international string ensemble „LGT Young Soloists“, which added valuable stage experience worldwide as a soloist as well as an ensemble member. 

Further important impulses were set through masterclasses with Ivan Monighetti, Hans Jørgen Jensen, Jan Vogler, Gary Hoffman, and Steven Isserlis, Gidon Kremer, Sir Andras Schiff and Martin Helmchen.

Arne Zeller holds scholarships by the „Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes“, the „Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben” and the International Music Academy Liechtenstein. He receives funding by the Peter-Klöckner Stiftung, was awarded the Werner Steifel Preis, the Martin-Stadtfeld-Preis of the „Freunde junger Musiker Mainz / Wiesbaden“, the Lichtenberger Musikpreis, the scholarship of the Jütting Foundation, and is the current holder of the Pergamenschikow Scholarship of Kronberg Academy.

In 2025 he was awarded the young musicians’ scholarship ZIRP of Rheinland-Pfalz (Germany), which in his case projected into the inclusion as a supported member of Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz from October 2025 on. Since 2024 Arne is part of the Stretton Excellence Mentorship Program, personally advised by Pablo Ferrández.

Arne is kindly supplied with the Charles Maucotel cello „ex-Tortelier“ (1850), courtesy of a member of the Stretton Society. Being a laureate of the German Music Instrument Fund he also has an Antonio Sgarbi cello to his disposition, generously provided by the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI e.V.

For the oncoming season Arne Zeller has scheduled concerts as a soloist and as a chamber musician in Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Greece, Romania, Spain, Japan, and Germany.