“Superb … a thoughtful, provocative meeting of minds”
SUNDAY TIMES
Award-winning Dutch violinist Tim Kliphuis has created a brand new style that embraces classical, gypsy jazz and folk.
Hailed as a ‘current-day improvising Paganini’, his inclusive approach to genres has united audiences and is influencing a new generation of string players.
After his master’s degree in classical violin at the Amsterdam Conservatoire, Kliphuis studied with the European Sinti gypsies. He recorded and toured with gypsy guitar legends Fapy Lafertin, The Rosenberg Trio and Angelo Debarre.
An invitation to the Richard Strauss Festival in Germany marked the start of the Tim Kliphuis Trio (Nigel Clark, guitar and Roy Percy, double bass) whose mission is a ‘total music’ without stylistic barriers. They performed for the Dutch King at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, curated the world fiddle night at Celtic Connections Glasgow, celebrated Stéphane Grappelli at the Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois-sur-Seine and shared the stage with Les Paul, Richard Galliano, Frankie Gavin, Roby Lakatos and Daniel Hope.
As a composer, Kliphuis has dedicated his art to the challenges on our planet. His climate change suite ‘The Five Elements’ accompanied the Royal mission to Stockholm to much acclaim, and kicked off the United Nations Water conference in March 2023. His Triple Concerto ‘Phoenix Rising’ (commissioned by NTR ZaterdagMatinee) considers our past, present and future.
Kliphuis has collaborated with the Netherlands and Tallinn Chamber Orchestras, The Hague and Cape Town Philharmonic, Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Bachvereniging and he has toured America, South Africa and Russia.
As a Sony Classical artist, Kliphuis and his Trio recorded Vivaldi-based ‘Reflecting the Seasons’ in 2016, followed by ‘Brandenburg’, based on Bach, and his own ‘Ulysses’ Violin Concerto in 2018.
Kliphuis was awarded the Scottish Jazz Award, South African Woordfees Award and the Polish Swing Raven Prize.
In between Trio tours and orchestral projects, the Tim Kliphuis Sextet with Dutch string players Janneke van Prooijen, Frank Brakkee and Charles Watt, he continues to wow audiences across Europe: a colourful crossover approach to classical and jazz music.
Kliphuis is an in-demand educator at festivals, competitions and
conservatoires. He wrote the best-selling book “Gypsy Jazz Violin” and teaches the foremost comprehensive online jazz violin course in the Tim Kliphuis Studio. He is Professor of String Improvisation at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam and director of the gypsy jazz summer school Grappelli-Django Camp.
He curates the annual Night of the Violin festival in Utrecht and is a DPA Microphones and Pirastro Strings artist.
