Andrej was born in 2005 and started playing cello at the age of 4 by Lenian Benjamins. From 2016 to 2019 he took lessons from Joachim Eijlander as a student at the Young Talent Academy Codarts / Hellendaal. Since September 2019 he continued his studies with the famous cellist Godfried Hoogeveen, former student of legendary Gregory Pyatigorsky. For 3 years Andrej is part of the Codarts YTO (Young Talent Orchestra) lead by the conductor Mikhail Zemtsov, with which he performed “The Swan” and “Allegro Appassionato” by Camille Saint-Saens as a soloist. He also performed the Cello Concerto of Saint-Saëns in 2019 with the YTO.

Andrej has several prizes at prestigious Dutch competitions to his name, including the Princes Christina Competition, where he won the incentive prize in 2017 and 2018; the 1st prize in 2017 at the Amstelveen music competition. In 2019 he became a finalist of the Concertgebouw competition and performed several times in the Concertgebouw.
He performs often at various festivals, such as the Amstelveld festival (Amstedam), Music on the water (Schiedam), in Belgium and Luxembourg. In 2018 he performed Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker with young musicians from Amsterdam and Moscow during Winter nights on the Amstel (Amsterdam). This year the project will be repeated in Amsterdam and the Hague and Andrej will also give a solo performance at the same festival. In December 2019 Andrej will take part at the festival organised by the Vladimir Spivakov International Charity Foundation “Moscow Meets Friends” as a soloist with the Lerman Chamber Orchestra.

Competitions

2017: Princes Christina Concours, the Incentive prize

2017: Amstelveen music competition, 1st prize

2018: Princes Christina Concours, the Incentive prize

2019: the Concertgebouw competition, Finalist

2020: International Music Competition in Vienna, Silver medal