In the generation after Ludwig Güttler there have been few German trumpeters of international renown. One of the most distinctive performers of this younger generation is undoubtedly Falk Maertens. This highly talented musician from the North German Emsland has already given concerts halfway around the globe. He has travelled Europe from Scandinavia to Italy, performed in several states of the former USSR, and advanced himself in Israel and America.
Born in Meppen in 1972, his talent revealed itself early, so that at the age of 14 he was already allowed to attend the Detmold College of Music as a junior student. Here Prof. Max Sommerhalder became his valued mentor – a relationship which was continued when the young school graduate commenced full-time studies in 1992. At the same time he was also a visiting student with Bo Nilsson in Sweden. Master classes with Pierre Thibaud and Maurice André among others provided the finishing touches for Maertens, who himself now coaches at “Brass Weeks” both in Germany and abroad.
It was during this period that Maertens enjoyed his first success as a musician. Admitted to the Federal Youth Orchestra in 1986, he won first prizes three years in a row at the Federal Music Competition “Jugend musiziert”: in 1989 and 1991 in the solo trumpet section, and 1990 for wind chamber music. From 1990 until 1994 he received a scholarship from the Jürgen Ponto Foundation. After he was awarded first prize despite a generally high standard at the International Trumpet Competition in Columbus (USA), his career took off. Only a year later he was engaged by the German Symphony Orchestra in Berlin (DSO) as solo trumpeter. Maertens enjoys playing chamber music and therefore also became a regular member of the German Brass Quintet and the Brasserie Berlin; he has also had several guest performances with the German Brass.
The second decisive point in his successful career was in New York. He managed to conquer the leading concert venues of both cities at almost the same time. On October 26th / 27th 1997 he appeared together with the Finnish piano star Olli Mustonen and his DSO colleagues under Vladimir Ashkenazy for the first time as a soloist in the Berlin Philharmonic, before taking New York’s world-famous Carnegie Hall by storm a month later, on November 20th, together with the same musicians in the course of a concert tour of America. This double debut in two of the world’s most important music centres was undoubtedly a crowning achievement for Maertens. Since 2002 Falk Maertens has also been solo trumpeter with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Claudio Abbado and Daniel Harding.
