Jonathan Flaksman, born in 1981 in Akron, Ohio, started playing the cello at five years of age. His first regular teacher was Madalena Burle-Marx. Hestudied at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Richard Aaron and the Juilliard School with Fred Sherry. In 2002 he moved to Germany and graduated in 2007 from Mannheim University in the class of his father Michael Flaksman (former professor at Cal State Northridge), completed an artist diploma in orchestral studies in 2010, and was a member of Live Music Now. He has had master classes with Bernard Greenhouse, Harvey Shapiro, Youngchang Cho, Jens Peter Maintz, Frans Helmerson, Maria Kliegel, and Ralph Kirshbaum among many others. He attended the Interlochen Arts Camp and the Aspen Music Festival in the United States, masterclasses in Portogruaro and Lucca in Italy, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, the summer academy in Łancut, Poland, and Aurora Chamber Music Festival in Sweden.
In 2013 he was a fellow at the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. He has played in the Orchestra of the Nationaltheater Mannheim, as principal cellist of Mannheimer Philharmoniker and Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, as continuo cellist of the La Folia Baroque Orchestra, and has toured as a member of the Philharmonie Der Nationen. His activities as soloist and chamber musician have brought him all over the United States and Europe as well as to Asia. He performs annually at the Chamber Music Festival of Ascoli Piceno in Italy. He performed as soloist with As a teacher he has given master classes in Cividale del Friuli in Italy and at University of California Santa Barbara. He has served on the jury of various string competitions.
He currently lives in LA and plays with the Symphonies of Pasadena, New West, Modesto, and Hawaii. He is also an active recording artist covering all genres.
He is tenured since 2015 as Assistant Principal Cellist of the Santa Barbara Symphony.