
© Otto van den Toorn

© Otto van den Toorn

© Anna van Kooij

© Otto van den Toorn
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.
Simone’s most recent recording, featuring Shostakovich Violin Concerto No.1 and Gubaidulina 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 recital album with pianist Robert Kulek.
With an extensive repertoire, Simone has recently performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras. Notable recent highlights include tours with the Montreal Symphony and Kent Nagano, as well as performances with the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony, both with Jaap van Zweden.
Simone’s re-engagements include the San Francisco Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, the Symphonies of Dallas, Houston, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Oregon, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Hallé Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, and Warsaw Philharmonic.
Simone has also appeared with the National Symphony (DC), Pittsburgh Symphony, Detroit Symphony, MDR Leipzig, Konzerthausorchester, Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Les Siècles, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, NAC Ottawa, and Sydney Symphony.
Her collaborations with conductors include Karina Canellakis, Sir Andrew Davis, Stéphane Denève, Sir Mark Elder, Fabien Gabel, James Gaffigan, Gustavo Gimeno, Vladimir Jurowski, Hannu Lintu, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andrès Orozco-Estrada, Andris Poga, François-Xavier Roth, Robert Trevino, Juraj Valcuha, Jaap van Zweden, and Mark Wigglesworth.
In May 2018, Simone was invited by His Majesty King Willem-Alexander and Her Majesty Queen Máxima of The Netherlands to perform during their official state visit to Luxembourg. In 2019, she was made Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Simone plays the “Mlynarski” Stradivarius (1718), on generous loan to her by an anonymous benefactor.
"Simone Lamsma…..made a brilliant [New York] Philharmonic debut in Britten’s Violin Concerto.…..Ms. Lamsma, who first worked with her countryman Mr. [Jaap] van Zweden in 2007, played splendidly, with crisp clarity and brightly radiant sound, conveying both the rhapsodic fervor and intriguing pensiveness of the music….."
Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times