Hi, I'm Sybren! I recently embarked on an adventure as a violinist in the world of jazz music through a new program of study in The Hague. Here, I also play in the EigenGrau Ensemble and the Isle Quartet, where we all write and perform new music together. Improvisation and composition bring me joy, and I play everything from classical and jazz to pop, funk, and rock.
Sybren Holwerda is a violinist from Zwolle. He has been studying jazz violin in The Hague with saxophonist Benjamin Herman since 2022.
He has studied with Arisa Fujita and Theodora Geraets at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, as well as with Nathaniel Vallois at the Purcell School of Music in London and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Before moving to England in 2015 to study violin, he studied with Annechien van Blom at the ArtEZ Conservatory in Zwolle.
Sybren has taken masterclasses with Charlie Siem, Diamanda Dramm, Sally O’Reilly, John Gilbert, Daniele Pascoletti, Linus Roth, Ayke Agus, and Tamsin Waley-Cohen, among others. He has also participated several times in the “New Virtuosi” master course in Italy, where he studied with Royal College of Music professors Ani Schnarch, Itzhak Rashkovsky, and Felix Andrievsky.
Sybren has performed with several ensembles and regularly joins orchestras on a project basis. Until 2015, he was a member of the Britten Youth String Orchestra, conducted by Loes Visser. In 2014, Sybren was selected for the RTL program “Het Orkest van Nederland,” which was conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend.
In addition to classical music, Sybren also has a passion for jazz, folk, and pop music. He composes his own songs, seeking to blend different styles within them. Sybren regularly collaborates with ensembles that help him further explore these styles. For example, he has played with Joe Broughton’s Folk Ensemble, is a member of the EigenGrau Ensemble, and served as concertmaster of the Jong Metropole Orkest in 2022. Sybren is also the first violinist of the Isle Quartet, a string quartet that pushes musical boundaries through original compositions and improvisation.
Sybren plays a Czech violin made by “Homolka” in 1867 and a bow labeled “Maline” from the Musical Instrument Fund.
In addition to his career as a violinist, Sybren has also developed a great passion for writing and producing his own music, striving to find a blend of pop, folk, jazz, and classical. He uses the violin, vocals, piano, (bass) guitar, and various electronic elements, which he records and arranges himself.
