Simone Lamsma
Romain Blondel
Sylvia Ferreira
“Simone Lamsma played splendidly, with crisp clarity and brightly radiant sound, conveying both the rhapsodic fervor and intriguing pensiveness of the music.“
The New York Times, December 2018
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.
With an extensive repertoire, Simone has been the guest of many of the world’s leading orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Wiener Symphoniker, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Helsinki Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, MDR Sinfonieorchester, National Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Dallas Symphony orchestras, Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony, Antwerp Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony orchestras, Les Siécles, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Belgian National Orchestra, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Hessischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Hallé Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony orchestras.
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Simone performs with such eminent conductors such as Jaap van Zweden, Antonio Pappano, Paavo Järvi, Gianandrea Noseda, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Vladimir Jurowski, Rafael Payare, Louis Langrée, Gustavo Gimeno, Karina Canellakis, Jonathon Heyward, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Kazuki Yamada, Tarmo Peltokoski, Marc Albrecht, Stéphane Denève, Vassily Petrenko, Domingo Hindoyan, Michael Francis, Simone Young, François-Xavier Roth, Olari Elts, Duncan Ward, Juraj Valcuha, John Storgards, Omer Meir-Wellber, Edward Gardner, Kent Nagano, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, James Gaffigan, Sir Mark Elder, Daniel Raiskin, Edo de Waart, Andris Poga, Jun Märkl, Kevin John Edusei, Jaime Martin, Jader Bignamini, Petr Popelka and Mark Wigglesworth.
In the 2024/25 season, Simone returns to Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Hallé Orchestra among other major engagements. She will premiere a piece by Danish composer Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen, co-commissioned by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Vancouver Symphony. Simone will also be Artist in Residence for the Dutch Radio Avrotros Series with the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra.
In 2022, her most recent recording was released to great acclaim, featuring late works by Rautavaara, including a world première with Malmö Symfoniorkester and Robert Trevino for the Ondine label. Other recordings include Shostakovich’s first violin concerto and Gubaidulina’s In Tempus praesens with Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under James Gaffigan and Reinbert de Leeuw on Challenge Classics, and a recital album of works by Mendelssohn, Janáček and Schumann with pianist Robert Kulek, also on Challenge Classics.
In 2019, Simone was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, an honour limited to 300 former Academy students, and awarded to those musicians who have distinguished themselves within the profession.
“Lamsma, who previously played Korngold’s violin concerto with the orchestra last November, proved herself more than a match for Shostakovich’s strenuous and symphonic creation…”
“An encore from Lamsma – the Largo from Bach’s Sonata for Solo Violin in C, BWV1005, hypnotic and a moment of stillness much needed after the Shostakovich. Perfectly chosen; and perfectly executed, with the loveliest purity of tone and line…”
The Canzonetta opened to the gentlest of entries, the first horn softly supportive in the background and a gurgling clarinet conjuring up the heat haze of a summer’s day. It was her effortless capacity for allowing the violin to speak, with all the time in the world, as she had already done in the first movement cadenza, which most impressed here. There was plenty of pedal to the metal in the Finale, where Noseda perfectly matched the flexibility of Lamsma’s tempi, the sparkle of the LSO textures allied to the soloist’s scintillating playing. But there was another quality here which I have rarely encountered elsewhere: an impishness and delight in unabashed playfulness, most evident in the little extra touches of rubato and delicious slides…..”
“Essentially an all-Russian affair, this was an exemplary performance from Lamsma, Noseda and the LSO
…Lamsma is a highly-regarded artist, having garnered excellent notices from her performances with some of the most high-ranking orchestras across the globe, and on the evidence of this coruscating interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s homage to the violin it is not hard to see why.
Overflowing with exuberance, Lamsma stamped her personality across the whole score. The extended first movement, which in lesser hands can often meander due to its lack of contrasts, here held the listener spellbound. Warmth, vitality, and energy suffused her playing, which even at times dared to exude a sultry feel. The first movement’s cadenza not only highlighted her faultless technique, but her superb interpretative qualities as well – and despite producing virtuosic fireworks, none of her playing was showy or ostentatious – it all stemmed from the natural ebb and flow of the piece.
There was an unhurried, almost elegiac feel to the second movement’s Canzonetta, its melancholic theme faultlessly traced by Lamsma, mirrored superbly by the London Symphony Orchestra’s attentive woodwind section. Indeed it is rare that both the soloist and orchestra inexorably breathe as one, yet this musical chemistry was evident between both throughout. Lamsma was playful, skittish almost, in the vivacious third movement, setting the seal on an exemplary interpretation.”
“It is a long time since I have heard such a confident statement of personality in this work and such an unashamed tribute to the Romantic spirit. The magic was there from the start, her smoky, smouldering tone drawing the listener in, robust and earthy in the lowest register, a strong and passionate sound where it mattered but equally capable of the tenderest whispers above the stave. You sensed the lungs slowly opening to the maximum extent, the diaphragm tightening and flattening to absorb all the ambient oxygen, Lamsma’s powerful bowing arm extracting every tonal shading and dynamic variation.
The Canzonetta opened to the gentlest of entries, the first horn softly supportive in the background and a gurgling clarinet conjuring up the heat haze of a summer’s day. It was her effortless capacity for allowing the violin to speak, with all the time in the world, as she had already done in the first movement cadenza, which most impressed here. There was plenty of pedal to the metal in the Finale, where Noseda perfectly matched the flexibility of Lamsma’s tempi, the sparkle of the LSO textures allied to the soloist’s scintillating playing. But there was another quality here which I have rarely encountered elsewhere: an impishness and delight in unabashed playfulness, most evident in the little extra touches of rubato and delicious slides…”
[…]Simone Lamsma delivered with gusto…
…..Lamsma took on the challenge with a bright timbre, almost brassy against the percussion. Controlled but ardent, exuberant but vexed, she triumphed over its physical hurdles and demonstrated an innate understanding of the historical complexities undergirding the work…
