Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma is rapidly establishing herself as a much sought soloist and recitalist worldwide. In July 2006, her début recital disc for Naxos, featuring works by Edward Elgar, was released to great critical acclaim, receiving brilliant reviews in among others The Strad magazine ("She has a seriously fine technique and impeccable intonation, and puts these to use with mature musical intelligence...”) and The Telegraph (UK) (“...With her Japanese pianist [Yurie Miura], she brings rich tone and immense quality to Elgar's sonata...") The CD was “Classic FM’s best buy” in September 2006 and was featured as “Instrumental and Chamber Disc of the Month” in Classic FM Magazine.
Ms Lamsma began playing the violin at the age of five, and moved to the UK aged eleven to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School with Professor Hu Kun. She continued to study with him at the Royal Academy in London until 2003 and from 2004 was a student of Professor Maurice Hasson. As the youngest student ever to enter the Royal Academy of Music’s Bachelor of Music programme, Ms Lamsma graduated from the Royal Academy aged 19 with first class honours, and awarded with the prestigious ‘HRH Princess Alice’s Prize’ for exemplary studentship, the ‘Louise Child Prize’ for the highest achievement of the Bmus Graduands and the ‘Roth Prize’ for the best violin exam result.
She made her highly acclaimed solo début at the age of fourteen performing Paganini Concerto No. 1 with the Northern Dutch Orchestra under Takuo Yuasa, and has since then performed as a soloist and recitalist in many major venues around the world. As a soloist Ms Lamsma has worked with renowned conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis, Owain Arwel Hughes, James Judd, Eri Klas, James Loughran, Sir Neville Marriner, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Arild Remmereit, Carlos Riazuelo, Jac van Steen, Michel Tabachnik, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Allin Vlasenko, Takuo Yuasa en Jaap van Zweden, appearing with many orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Radio Symfonie Orkest, Residentie Orkest, Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest, Noord Nederlands Orkest, Qingdao Symphony Orchestra, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, l’Orchestre Charlemagne, Orquesta Sinfónica Municipal de Caracas, and National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.
Enormously successful in the world’s international violin competitions, Ms Lamsma won the Silver Medal in the prestigious International Violin Competition of Indianapolis 2006, 1st prize in the China International Violin Competition 2005 and 1st Prize in the Benjamin Britten International Violin Competition 2004. Among many other awards and laureate prizes Ms Lamsma also won the 1st Prize in the 2003 Dutch National Violin Competition (‘Oskar Back’). In October 2007 she was nominated for a Dutch VSCD Classical Music Prize in the category New Generation Musicians.
For the recording of Spohr Violin Concertos Nos. 6, 8 and 11, Ms Lamsma plays on a Carlo Tononi (Bologna) violin dating from 1709.
