Miako Klein

MIAKO KLEIN, Berlin-based musician, performer and improviser, has a greatly varied musical background. Classically educated on the recorder and violin, she has extensive experiences in performing contemporary music, as well as in Early and improvised music. Miako constantly questions and challenges the conventional ways of music performance by pushing boundaries between styles and genres, by experiment, and by interdisciplinary collaborations. She performs as a soloist and chamber musician and often collaborates with composers who have written works for her.

Miako has played as a guest with Ensemble Modern, ICE International Contemporary Ensemble, Il Pomo d'Oro, Constanza Macras | Dorky Park and Quartet New Generation, and she regularly performs with trumpet player Sava Stoianov, with her Duo WARBLE (with trumpeter Brad Henkel) and violinist Biliana Voutchkova.
Throughout 2010/11, she worked as musician at the Cirque du Soleil Show ZAiA in Macau. She won fellowships as Artist in Residency at Kunstmeile Krems in 2014 and Akademie Schloss Solitude 2014-15.

She has performed at the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, MATA-Festival NYC, Festival Musica Strasbourg, Early Music Festival Barcelona, Emergences Festival Avignon, Festival Aix-en-Provence, Boulevard Festival s’Hertogenbosch, DeSuite-Muziekweek Amsterdam and Klangwerktage Hamburg. Miako's live-recordings have been broadcast on German radio stations including HR/DLF, WDR3 and Concertzender.

At young age Miako won prizes in numerous competitions including first prize at the “International Recorder Competition of Engelskirchen” and the “SONBU” International Recorder Competition of Utrecht/NL. She was awarded first prize at Germany’s National Youth Competition, “Bundeswettbewerb Jugend musiziert”, on multiple occasions. Miako also won the “Prize of the City Erlangen for the Best Interpretation of Contemporary Music”, the special award for outstanding ensemble performance by “Stadtsparkasse Köln”, and the IRINO-Foundation Tokyo award for contemporary music.

The daughter of a classical pianist, Miako received her first musical lessons as a young child. At the Westfalian music school she was then taught the recorder by Gudula Rosa and the violin by Tor-Song Tan. Miako studied the recorder with Paul Leenhouts at the Amsterdam Conservatory, and graduated with distinction. She also studied violin as a second major with Lex Korff de Gidts. Miako received additional private recorder lessons from Winfried Michel and Walter van Hauwe, and violin lessons from Martin Dehning and Vesselin Paraschkevov. She undertook chamber music lessons at the Dutch String Quartet Academy and participated in masterclasses conducted by Eberhard Feltz (Berlin), Isabel Charisius (Alban Berg Quartett), Stefan Metz (Amsterdam) and the Auryn-Quartett.

She also studied Early Music at the UdK Berlin with Prof. Christoph Huntgeburth (recorder) and Irmgard Huntgeburth (Baroque violin).