Ian de Jong
violin
My name is Ian de Jong, and since 2011 I have had the great pleasure of playing a Voller Brothers violin on loan from the Musical Instrument Fund. In the past, I’ve also had the privilege of playing a violin bow by Heinrich Knopf and a viola by Ronald de Jongh. I’m very grateful to the fund for making this possible!
My name is Ian de Jong, and I am a Dutch-American violinist and violist. As a child, I lived mostly in Chicago, U.S., but from 1993 to 1999 I lived in Amstelveen. There, at the age of eight, I began taking violin lessons with Wiesje Miedema at the Amstelveen Music School. In 2010, I completed my Bachelor of Music at the DePaul University School of Music in Chicago, with Robert Waters as my major instructor.
In 2010, I moved back to the Netherlands. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but it soon became clear that I would continue with music. A few months later, I became concertmaster of the “street symphony orchestra” Het Ricciotti Ensemble, where I played from 2011 to 2016. This was a special, formative experience for me. We performed for various audiences—sometimes as many as five times a day—in a variety of settings: including for the elderly, hospital patients, asylum seekers, schoolchildren, people with disabilities, and prisoners, throughout the Netherlands as well as in Poland, Turkey, Belgium, Russia, Germany, Bosnia, and Brazil.
In 2011, I also received a beautiful Voller Brothers violin on loan from the Musical Instrument Fund. This violin is a huge improvement over the one I played before. It has a rich, elegant tone and also feels very comfortable in my hand. Thanks to this violin, my playing has improved tremendously, and I can produce a sound I never thought possible before: time and again, I continue to discover new timbres. In the past, I also played a beautiful old violin bow by Heinrich Knopf and a viola by Ronald de Jongh, both on loan from the fund.
In 2012, I completed my Bachelor’s degree in violin at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Kees Koelmans as my primary instructor. After a year as an intern at the academy of the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, I earned my Master’s degree in violin under Gordan Nikolic in 2016, with viola as my second major under Gijs Kramers.
I am active as a chamber and orchestral musician. I was a member of the Bering String Trio and have been playing with the Phoenix Ensemble since 2019. I have performed with, among others, the Metropole Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the North Netherlands Orchestra, Philharmonie Zuidnederland, Sinfonia Rotterdam, Ludwig, the Doelen Ensemble, and the Magogo Chamber Orchestra. In addition to classical music, I also enjoy improvisation and recording techniques, and I love playing other genres such as pop, jazz, and bluegrass.
