Clara de Groote

Clara de Groote was born in Frankfurt am Main in 2002. She started playing the violin at the age of five and later switched to the drumset until she finally found her way to classical percussion in 2015.
In 2018, Clara became a junior student at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin, where she is currently studying for her bachelor's degree with professors Franz Schindlbeck, Rainer Seegers (both from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra) and Biao Li.
As a member of the German National Youth Orchestra, she has performed with conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Alexander Shelley and Ingo Metzmacher in Germany's largest concert halls, including the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Gewandhaus Leipzig and the Berlin Philharmonie. These tours have also taken her abroad, to Luxembourg and South Africa. She gained further orchestral experience as a substitute with the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, the ensemble reflektor, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, among others.
Clara has received numerous scholarships and is supported by the Mozart-Gesellschaft Dortmund and the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. As part of these scholarships, she has already performed several times as a soloist with orchestras such as the dogma chamber orchestra and the Bavarian Chamber Orchestra Bad Brückenau.
From February to July 2022, she gained valuable orchestral experience as an intern in the percussion section of the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra. Since 2023, Clara has been a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO), with which she has toured throughout Europe, Mexico and the USA under conductors such as Antonio Pappano and Manfred Honeck.
She regularly performs at German chamber music festivals as part of her duo with pianist Marie Hauzel, which she founded in 2022. Clara de Groote has been a member of the Orchestra Academy of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since April 2024.