Jaap van Zweden

Born in Amsterdam in 1960, Jaap Van Zweden began his musical career as a violinist, becoming at nineteen the youngest ever concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.  In 1997, van Zweden made his decision to conduct full time, played his last concert as a violinist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and was named the chief conductor of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra where he remained until 2003. In 2000, he added the music directorship of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague to his credits, a post he held until 2005.
Jaap van Zweden began his third season as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in September 2010. His commitment to the orchestra was recently extended through the 2015-2016 season. Under his direction, the orchestra is enhancing its programming and community outreach, continuing to champion new composers, and raising its national profile with an annual residency in Vail, CO and a 2011 appearance at Carnegie Hall in the inaugural Spring for Music Festival. Concurrently with his post in Dallas, van Zweden’s other titled positions include chief conductor and artistic director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (2005-2012), and chief conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra of Belgium (2008-2012).
Under van Zweden’s leadership, the DSO has established an ongoing residency at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival through the summer of 2012, and debuted five world premiere works over two seasons as part of the DSO’s Texas Instruments Classical Series. Throughout the past seasons, the orchestra, under van Zweden's leadership, has received lavish praise from notable media including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Musical America, The Financial Times, BBC Music Magazine, The Dallas Morning News and many others. In a December 2009 article in The LA Times, Mark Swed named van Zweden one of the”Faces to Watch“ in 2010, noting van Zweden “knows how to generate tense, tactile excitement in all kinds of music.” Van Zweden has also become a highly sought-after guest artist since the DSO introduced him to US audiences in 2007. During the 2010-2011 season, van Zweden debuts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, San Paulo Symphony, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic. He makes his much-anticipated fourth guest appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and returns to guest conduct with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Louis Symphony and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
He also has guested with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National du Capital de Toulouse, Munich Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Tokyo Philharmonic, among others.