Janine Jansen Janine Jansen

Janine Jansen (Dutch pronunciation: [ʒɑnine jɑnsən]); born 7 January 1978 in Soest in the Netherlands) is a violinist and violist.

Early life and education

Jansen was born to a musical family. Her father Jan Jansen (nl) plays organ, harpsichord and piano; from 1987 to mid-2011 he was the organist of St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht, and was invested as a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau. Her mother is a classical singer; her brother David (nl) is a harpsichordist and organist; her brother Maarten is a cellist; and her uncle is the bass singer Peter Kooy. She began to study the violin at age 6, and has studied with Coosje Wijzenbeek, Philippe Hirschhorn, and Boris Belkin.

She is married to Swedish conductor Daniel Blendulf and lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Biography

She appeared as soloist with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland in 2001, where she performed the Brahms Violin Concerto. She opened the BBC Proms in 2005.

She has eschewed tradition by recording with only five solo strings rather than an orchestra, including her brother as cellist and father playing continuo. In live concerts, she has received standing ovations from enthusiastic audiences, for example at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 2006 concert at Berlin's Waldbühne, with a full attendance of 25,000, and in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008 to a sold-out audience.

Jansen has performed on the 1727 Stradivari "Barrere" violin, which was on loan from the Stradivari Society of Chicago, also the 1727 Stradivari "Baron Deurbroucq", which is owned by the Beare's International Violin Society. Jansen is currently in possession for 10 years of the 1707 Antonio Stradivari ‘Rivaz, Baron Gutmann’, which is owned by the Norwegian national bank's subsidiary: Dextra musica. She has begun her own chamber music festival in Utrecht. She has been a member of Spectrum Concerts Berlin since 1998.

She received the Dutch Music Prize in 2003, and the distinguished Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award in Britain in 2009.

Jansen was a Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2002–2004.

She and her ex-boyfriend, the violinist Julian Rachlin, have collaborated in chamber music performances.