Milena Marena belongs to a new generation of cellists who view soloistic expression and chamber music sensibility as mutually enriching dimensions of their artistry. The Swiss cellist performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician across Europe and South America, and has appeared with orchestras such as the Argovia Philharmonic, the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Kuraia, and the Neues Orchester Basel. Her chamber music partners include Julia Fischer, Kian Soltani, Nils Mönkemeyer, Corina Belcea, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Eric Le Sage, and Julian Prégardien.

In the 2025/26 season, she will perform with the award-winning Loewe Quartet, alongside Kian Soltani, with her Lucerne Piano Trio, and with pianist Teo Gheorghiu. As a soloist, she will appear in Schumann’s Cello Concerto, Brahms’ Double Concerto, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, and Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Her engagements will take her across Europe as well as to Mexico and Chile.

Milena Marena is a prizewinner of numerous competitions. Early distinctions include multiple first prizes at the Swiss Youth Music Competition. In 2018, she won third prize at the Murten Classics Cello Competition, followed by an award at the Schenk Soloist Competition in 2020. In 2023, she received a special prize at the Kiwanis Soloist Competition in Zurich and second prizes at both the Vienna Classical Music Academy and the 19th Padova International Music Competition. That same year, she won first prize at the Slava International Cello Competition. In 2024, she reached the second round of the prestigious ARD International Music Competition. As a chamber musician, she has received further recognition, including first prize at the Kiwanis Chamber Music Competition (2022) and second prize at the Orpheus Competition (2021). With her former quartet, she was a finalist of the Young Credit Suisse Award (2022) and winner of the Marianne and Curt Dienemann Foundation Prize in 2023.

She has appeared at festivals and concert series in Switzerland and abroad. Her artistic development has been shaped by musicians such as David Geringas, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Gustav Rivinius, Peter Bruns, Reinhard Latzko, and Eberhard Feltz. She also worked intensively with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) and Robert Levin in the context of her quartet studies.

Milena Marena studied with Rafael Rosenfeld at the Music Academy Basel, where she had already been taking private lessons from the age of ten. She continued her studies with Thomas Grossenbacher at the Zurich University of the Arts. She was awarded scholarships from the Friedl Wald Foundation and the Aebi-Lüthy Foundation, and received a music prize from the International Lyceum Club Zurich. She was a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and, after a successful audition, played for six months in the tutti section of the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich. In March 2025, she won the 50% solo cello position at the Musikkollegium Winterthur.

Milena Marena plays a cello by Francesco Gagliano (1716).