Nils Milan Boxberg (2005) first came into contact with the double bass in elementary school at the age of six. As part of a strings class project, he fell in love with the sound of the lowest string instrument.
Initially, he was taught by Uli Schneider at the municipal music school in Langenfeld. At the age of seven, Milan attended an international double bass course together with guest students from China. In the following years, he took part in further courses in Germany and abroad. From a very early age he had lessons with renowned double bassists such as Thierry Barbé, Boguslav Furtok and Szymon Marciniak, among others. At the age of fourteen, Milan passed the audition to the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf and joined the class of Prof. Rick Stotijn as a junior student. In 2023 he continues his studies with Prof. Rick Stotijn as a bachelor student. Furthermore, Milan gained artistic inspiration in master classes with Olivier Thiery, Rodrigo Moro Martín, Burak Marlali and Stanislau Anishchanka.
Milan made his successful debut as a soloist in 2023, performing Giovanni Bottesini’s B minor concerto in three concerts with the Bergische Symphoniker.
Copyright: Stefan Pieper
Milan appreciates the versatility of the double bass. In addition to solo performances, he is active as an orchestral and chamber musician and has also participated in a musical production.
At the age of ten Milan played in the NRW selection orchestra KiO, later he was principal in the NRW State Youth Orchestra (Landesjugendorchester NRW) and currently principal in the National Youth Orchestra of Germany (Bundesjugendorchester). There he has had the opportunity to collaborate with renowned conductors and musicians such as Kirill Petrenko, Tabea Zimmermann, Christian Tetzlaff, Antje Weithaas and Maximilian Hornung, among others. He has already performed in many large concert halls in Germany such as the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Philharmonie in Cologne, the Konzerthaus in Berlin and the historic Stadthalle in Wuppertal.
In the course of his musical education, Milan won first prizes with the highest possible score at the national competition “Jugend musiziert” in 2019 and 2022. Also he was awarded twice with the special prize of Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. In 2019, he also received other awards, the Edgar Auer Special Prize for Double Bass Solo, the Sparkassen sponsorship award of Mettmann and the Jugendkulturpreis of Wuppertal. Since 2019 Milan is a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and currently plays a double bass from the German Musical Instrument Fund (Deutscher Musikinstrumentenfonds).