Janine Jansen

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Janine Jansen (born in Utrecht, 1978) is a Dutch violinist. Her father and brother are also musicians. She began to study the violin at age 6. She studied with Coosje Wijzenbeek, Philipp Hirshhorn, and Boris Belkin.

Jansen appeared as soloist with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland in 2001, where she performed the Brahms Violin Concerto. She opened the BBC Proms in 2005. She is very adventurous with her performance, with emphasis on communication more than on precision or adherence to status quo. Her tone is of extremely fine quality. Her recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons is a good example of her style. She eschewed tradition by recording with only 5 solo strings rather than an orchestra, including her brother as cellist and father playing continuo.

As of January 2006, there are two mainstream CDs (one also a hybrid SACD) available of her playing. The first is a collection of encore pieces, conducted by Barry Wordsworth, the second a chamber ensemble rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. In particular, her Vivaldi recording has seen great success in terms of downloading sales.^[1]

She has recorded the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting. In October 2006, she released her third album in the Netherlands (available internationally in January 2007). The CD features the Mendelssohn and Bruch Violin Concertos, along with the Bruch Romance for Viola, with conductor Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

Jansen currently uses the 1727 Stradivari Barrere violin, on extended loan by the Stradivari Society of Chicago. She has begun her own chamber music festival in Utrecht.

Jansen and her boyfriend, the violinist Julian Rachlin, have collaborated in chamber music performances.^[2]