Guest ArtistsSimone Lamsma, violin

“Simone Lamsma played splendidly, with crisp clarity and brightly radiant sound, conveying both the rhapsodic fervor and intriguing pensiveness of the music.“ (-The New York Times, December 2018)

Hailed for her “brilliant, polished, expressive and intense” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) and “absolutely stunning” (Chicago Tribune) playing, Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma is respected by critics, peers and audiences as one of classical music’s most striking and captivating musical personalities.

With an extensive repertoire of over 60 Violin Concertos, Simone’s recent seasons have seen her perform with many of the world’s leading orchestras. Notable recent highlights include her debut with the New York Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra with Antonio Pappano, the Deutsche Kammer Philharmonie Bremen with Paavo Järvi at the Concertgebouw, the Gürzenich Orchester under Duncan Ward, the Helsinki Philharmonic under Olari Elts, her Berlin debut with the Konzerthaus Orchester and Juraj Valcuha and return invitations to the London Symphony Orchestra with Gianandrea Noseda, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Jaap van Zweden, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Rotterdam Phiharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Houston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg or the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. Simone is Artist in Residence during the 2021-22 season with the Residentie Orkest in The Hague. This season is also the start of her three-season residency with the Oregon Symphony.

In the 2022-23 season, Simone will debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn and Gulbenkian Orchestra and will return to the Hessischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National d’Ile de France, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and tour with the NordWest Deutsche Philharmonie and music director Jonathon Heyward. She will also premiere a piece by young Dutch composer Mathilde Wantenaar with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic at the Concertgebouw.

Simone has performed with such major orchestras as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony, Les Siécles, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

Simone regularly performs with such eminent conductors as Jaap van Zweden, Vladimir Jurowski , Karina Canellakis, Kent Nagano, Ed Gardner, Francois-Xavier Roth, Gustavo Gimeno, John Storgards, James Gaffigan, Omer Meir Wellber, Elim Chan, Mark Wigglesworth, Carlos Kalmar, Robert Trevino, Case Scaglione, Kazuki Yamada, Alexander Shelley, Juraj Valcuha, Andris Poga, Valentina Peleggi, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Michael Francis, Edo de Waart ,Marc Albrecht, James Feddeck, Nuno Coelho, Jun Märkl, Jonathon Heyward. She also played Yannick Néet-Seguin, Hannu LIntu, Stéphane Denève, Andrés Orozco-Estrada and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

In 2017 Simone’s most recent recording featuring Shostakovich’s first violin concerto and Gubaidulina’s In Tempus praesens with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under James Gaffigan and Reinbert de Leeuw was released on Challenge Classics and received high accolades from the press, as did her previous Mendelssohn, Janáček and Schumann CD with pianist Robert Kulek.

Simone began studying the violin at the age of 5 and moved to the UK aged 11 to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School with Professor Hu Kun. At the age of 14 Simone made her professional solo debut with the North Netherlands Orchestra performing Paganini’s 1st Violin Concerto, her debut highly praised by the press. She continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Professor Hu Kun and Professor Maurice Hasson, where she graduated aged 19 with first class honors and several prestigious awards. In 2019, she was made Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, an honor limited to 300 former Academy students, and awarded to those musicians who have distinguished themselves within the profession.

Simone plays the “Mlynarski” Stradivarius (1718), on generous loan to her by an anonymous benefactor.