The Dutch American violist/violinist Ian de Jong was born in Denver in 1987 and grew up in both Amsterdam and Chicago. He holds bachelor’s degrees from Chicago’s DePaul School of Music with Robert Waters and the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Kees Koelmans. He is now pursuing his master’s degree at the Conservatory of Rotterdam, on violin with Gordan Nikolic and on viola with Gijs Kramers.
Ian has performed as soloist with the Ricciotti Ensemble, the Windy City String Ensemble, the Merit Symphony Orchestra and the DePaul Baroque Ensemble. As an orchestral freelancer Ian has played in such Dutch orchestras as the Netherlands Philharmonic, the North Netherlands Orchestra, the Magogo Chamber Orchestra and the Ludwig Ensemble. An enthusiastic chamber musician, Ian was a member of the Oberon Saxophone Trio and the Merit Honors Piano Trio in Chicago. Ian has received chamber music coachings from Timothy Eddy, Miriam Fried, Paul Katz and Emanuel Ax at the Steans Institute for Young Artists, the Festival Institute at Round Top and the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival. In his band HENS Ian is a solo fiddler and songcrafter, playing music varying from folk and 30’s jazz to poetic Dutch-language originals. In the pop realm he has recorded hits with David Guetta, Sia and Sam Martin and performed on numerous Dutch TV and radio shows.
As concertmaster of The Ricciotti Ensemble since 2011, Ian has been privileged to perform for prisoners, refugees, schoolchildren, retirees and mentally handicapped people in Holland, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Bosnia. Ian plays on an 1890 Voller Brothers violin, on loan from the National Music Instrument Foundation.
