• Home
• 2005 Season
• Order Tickets
• Support the Festival
• About Us
• Press Info

• Concerts
• Highlights
• Calendar
• Artists
• Music Director
• Composers
• Featured Performers
• Orchestra
• Special Events
• Education

Marijn Simons

Marijn Simons (b. December 25, 1982, The Netherlands) received his first violin lesson at the age of four, and simultaneously — without formal compositional training — started to compose music of his own. At age ten he completed his first string quartet. Simons studied violin with Saschko Gawriloff and conducting with Jean-Bernard Pommier and Ed Spanjaard. Presently he is studying composition with Scotland's preeminent composer, James MacMillan.

From an early age Marijn Simons played the violin in recitals and broadcasts for radio and television. His first professional concert was at the age of ten. A year later he made his concerto début playing the Mendelssohn concerto and went on to play with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Noord-Hollands Philharmonic, Het Gelders Orchestra, Residence Orchestra, Limburg Symphony Orchestra, Noord Nederlands Orchestra, Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, Baden-Badener Philharmonie, and Northern Sinfonia.

In 2001 he traveled to Palermo, Italy for performances of the Hindemith concerto, then to Mexico where he performed in the world premiere of the Villa-Lobos concerto with the National Symphony and Enrique Diemecke. Also in 2001 he gave a broadcast performance of the Milhaud concertino with the Nieuw Sinfonietta in Amsterdam and the 2nd Milhaud concerto with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. That same year the trombonist, Jacques Mauger, performed the world premiere of Simons' trombone concerto Concerto Comique. Simons made a further visit to Palermo in the summer for concerts and in the same year won the Philip Morris Arts Prize in the Netherlands. Also in 2001, his vocal piece The City of the Soul was awarded First Prize in the Best Choral Composition Awards in the Netherlands.

In 2002 Simons made a successful début with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in the world premiere of his second violin concerto Secret Notes. The work was commissioned by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic's New Music Group. He returned to California in 2004 to perform with the Long Beach Symphony. In April 2004 his piano concerto Concerto d'un bon Esprit received its world premiere in Hanoi with the Vietnam Symphony and in June 2004 the Residence Orchestra premiered his percussion concerto Concerto Fabuleux conducted by James MacMillan.

In 2003 Simons appeared in Finland at the annual Villa-Lobos Symposium playing a Bach concerto. His song cycle Five Poems by Emily Dickinson also received its world premiere at the Villa-Lobos Symposium. In May 2004 he traveled to Mexico City for the performance of his Five Poemsby Emily Dickinsonat the Centro Nacional de Las Artes.

In August 2004 Marijn Simons was Composer-in-Residence at the Delft Chamber Music Festival in the Netherlands and in December his double piano concerto A Tí Te Toca was premiered in Germany. Earlier this year, his Secret Notes received its European première along with the Dutch première of MacMillan's violin concerto A Deep But Dazzling Darkness with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer James MacMillan. In 2005 Simons will play his own compositions at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California with Marin Alsop, and will be in attendance for the American première of his percussion concerto Concerto Fabuleux with Evelyn Glennie as soloist at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.