Olaf Maninger: If I weren’t a musician … Olaf Maninger: If I weren’t a musician …

In this series, we introduce members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the passions that occupy them beyond music. Today: principal cellist Olaf Maninger, who has never been afraid to think beyond the obvious.

“Anyone with visions should see a doctor”: the quote is famously attributed to Helmut Schmidt, although its precise origins remain disputed. Either way, it casts visions of the future as impractical, even faintly pathological. Olaf Maninger sees things differently. “Anyone who wants to shape the future,” he says, “needs the courage to have visions.”

Maninger has had ample reason to put that principle into practice. As a member of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s media board and managing director of Berlin Phil Media GmbH, he has repeatedly had to combine foresight with a willingness to take risks. Around two decades ago, he recalls, it was becoming increasingly difficult to place classical music on television, threatening the orchestra’s visibility in the media. In response, Maninger and a small group of like-minded colleagues developed the Digital Concert Hall. The idea took shape in 2006; from the beginning of the 2008/09 season, the orchestra’s Berlin programmes were recorded for the platform, and its first live stream followed on 6 January 2009. It was a pioneering step: for the first time, the Berliner Philharmoniker could reach audiences around the world directly, independently of broadcasters and beyond the time and place of a concert. Had Maninger taken Schmidt at his word, the Digital Concert Hall might never have existed.

Maninger’s path to media innovation began, however, with the cello. Born in Recklinghausen, he studied in Essen with János Starker and Maria Kliegel, then in Cologne with Armin Fromm, António Meneses and Boris Pergamenschikow, as well as with the Amadeus Quartet. He joined the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1995 and was appointed principal cellist the following year.

Whenever Olaf Maninger is not playing the cello or overseeing the Berliner Philharmoniker’s media activities, he immerses himself in contemporary art. In galleries such as Sprüth Magers, museums and art fairs including Art Basel, he has found a world that has enriched his life and brought him lasting friendships with a number of artists. What he regrets is how rarely that world intersects with classical music. Bringing the two together has long been an ambition of his, and the 2014  launch of the orchestra’s own label, Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings, offered a new opportunity to pursue it. At a time when many had already pronounced the CD dead, Maninger set out to rethink what a physical recording could be.

“We said we wanted to produce something that wouldn’t look like a CD at all,” he explains. Instead of a conventional booklet, the editions would include a substantial book. From the outset, he wanted artists including Thomas Struth, Jorinde Voigt, Thomas Demand and Wolfgang Tillmans to shape the visual identity of the releases. “The same care the orchestra brings to the music should go into the design of our editions,” Maninger says. Some critics were sceptical at first, but the success of the editions has vindicated the approach. For Maninger, they represent another step towards bringing music and visual art into closer dialogue.

As he leaves for his next appointment, Maninger offers a final thought: “Only a flourishing cultural landscape can enable a society to thrive.” His career suggests that visions are not a distraction from reality, but one way of shaping it.