Cellist Tanja Tetzlaff has been one of the most influential musicians of her generation for decades, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. Her playing is characterized in particular by a uniquely fine, yet powerful and nuanced sound, which is always accompanied by cultivated musicality. Tanja Tetzlaff is particularly interested in going beyond the classical presentation of music, incorporating other art forms and engaging with current affairs. For her special commitment to bringing the issues of nature conservation and climate change into the concert hall, she was appointed a lifetime ambassador by the "Orchestra of Change".

In April 2021, Tanja Tetzlaff was the first recipient of the highly endowed Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship from the city of Weimar. With the prize money, she was able to realize the film project "Suites4Nature", which relates Bach's famous cello suites to nature and climate change issues. The film premiered in Weimar in April 2023 and has been shown at the Vienna Film Festival, Bonn Beethovenfest, Kronberg Festival and various cinemas. This extraordinary project was crowned with the Innovation Award for Sustainability at the Opus Klassik Awards in October 2023. She received another Opus Klassik Award for the best chamber music recording in 2023 together with her brother Christian Tetzlaff and posthumously Lars Vogt for their recording of Schubert Piano Trios (Ondine).

Tanja Tetzlaff's special trademark is her exceptionally broad repertoire. In addition to the major concertos of the standard cello repertoire, she is particularly fond of the cello concertos by Unsuk Chin, Witold Lutosławski, Jörg Widmann, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and the Double Concerto for Cello & Percussion by Rolf Wallin. In September 2022, she premiered Olga Neuwirth's Double Concerto for Cello & Percussion with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and percussionist Hans Kristian Kjos Sørensen.

In the 2023/24 season, Tanja Tetzlaff will perform with the Odense Symphony, Prague Radio Symphony, the Braunschweig State Orchestra and the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, among others. In chamber music, she will perform as part of the Tetzlaff Quartet at the Musikverein Vienna, the Pierre Boulez Saal, the Bozar Brussels and the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam as well as concerts with her husband Florian Donderer, the pianists Kiveli Dörken and Lauma Skride and the Signum Quartet.

During her career, Tanja Tetzlaff has performed with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. She has worked with renowned conductors including Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Karina Canellakis, Heinz Holliger, Paavo Järvi, Sir Roger Norrington and Robin Ticciati.

Chamber music is one of Tanja Tetzlaff's great passions. She is a founding member of the Tetzlaff Quartet and has performed worldwide with Christian Tetzlaff, Elisabeth Kufferath and Hanna Weinmeister since 1994. Other regular chamber music partners include violinist Florian Donderer, pianists Kiveli Dörken and Lauma Skride, the Signum Saxophone Quartet and the Signum Quartet. She also curates the chamber concert series at Sendesaal Bremen.

Recordings have been released by Cavi, Ars, NEOS and Ondine, including concertos by Wolfgang Rihm and Ernst Toch. A solo CD with Bach suites and works by Thorsten Encke was released in October 2019.

Tanja Tetzlaff studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with Professor Bernhard Gmelin and at the Mozarteum Salzburg with Professor Heinrich Schiff. She plays a cello by Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini built in 1776.