Czech Chamber Music Society • Janine Jansen

Janine Jansen was born to a Dutch family. Her father, an organist, pianist, and harpsichord player, and her mother, a singer, taught music to all their children from an early age. Little Janine sang in the church choir and began playing the violin at age six under the guidance of the famed pedagogue Coosje Wijzenbeek and making music with her father and brothers. “There was no escaping music at home; life without it was unthinkable,” she recalls. She also witnessed the rehearsals of early music ensembles because some of the biggest names in the field of historically informed interpretation in those days were among her family’s friends, and that had such an influence on her that there was even a time when she played with a Baroque bow and gut strings. Ultimately, however, she decided to go the “traditional” route and to pay her respects to historically informed interpretation in other ways (like by the style of her phrasing), and that gives her playing a personal touch.

She made her debut at Amsterdam’s famed Concertgebouw at age 15, and even the sudden death of Philippe Hirschhorn, her teacher at the time, could not stop her rise to fame. Another teacher, Boris Belkin, followed, and shortly after her 20th birthday, she launched her international career and began making recordings on the Decca Classics label. Since her Vivaldi recording, which broke sales records, she has become famous all around the world.

For years now, top musical ensembles have been vying for her attention. In March 2024 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the inaugural Janine Jansen Bach Festival will take place, at which the violin superstar will play roles in planning the programmes and performing. Besides the traditional repertoire, this season also features contemporary music including the double concerto Distans by the English composer Sally Beamish and the world premiere of a violin concerto by Britta Byström. There is also plenty of touring squeezed into her busy schedule. The longest tour is to the Far East with the Oslo Philharmonic and Klaus Mäkelä, but there will be plenty of appearances in Europe as well. One tour includes an appearance with the London Symphony Orchestra led by Sir Antonio Pappano, with whom she has a long history of professional friendship.

Under his baton, Janine Jansen has make recordings including works by Brahms and Bartók, but they came into even closer contact when she made her latest CD titled “12 Stradivari”, a recording that the journal Gramophone even called “a beautiful testament to her very special musical friendship with Pappano”. Jansen came up with the truly original idea of creating a kind of study of twelve Stradivarius violins, presenting them in the repertoire for which those instruments were the inspiration, the goal being to let the outstanding qualities of each instrument come to the fore. And she invited none other than her “old friend” Pappano to accompany her at the piano. 

Besides Pappano, Jansen also works closely with the pianist Denis Kozhukhin, with whom she will be appearing in December at Wigmore Hall as the season’s artist-in-residence, and she is playing in a trio established with Martha Argerich and Mischa Maisky. She already got a taste of chamber music at home as a child, and her teacher Coosje Wijzenbeek strongly fostered that interest. Chamber music has had an indispensable place in her career, as is also shown by the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht, which has been under her artistic supervision from its founding until what is now its 20th season.