Russian-born Chicago-based cellist and composer Ian Maksin has gained international recognition for his beautiful tone, his own unique innovative style of playing the instrument and for taking the cello well outside its conventional role. As a soloist, he gives more than two hundred public performances annually in North and South America, Europe and Asia.
Born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, Maksin began playing the cello at age six at the Special School for Gifted Children of the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. At age seventeen he came to the United States to attend the Manhattan School of Music in New York City and later became the principal cellist of the New World Symphony, America’s one-of-a-kind training orchestra under direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. During that time he had an opportunity to receive personal mentorship from such artists as Lynn Harrell, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, Bernard Greenhouse, and many others.
Apart from being highly regarded as a classical artist, Maksin collaborates with other artists in a variety of musical genres: jazz, blues, flamenco, rock, R&B and world music, blending many styles together using cello as the common denominator. He can often be heard and seen in collaborative projects with artists from different corners of the globe: Morocco, Cuba, Serbia, Iran, Pakistan, India, Spain, Mexico, Japan, just to name a few. As a guest artist, he has performed and recorded with such artists as Andrea Bocelli, P. Diddy, Snoop Dogg, Gloria Estefan and Barry Gibb. He has also opened performances for Sting and his guitarist Dominic Miller.