Katinka Kleijn’s solo credits include appearances
with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Youth Concerts; the Hague Philharmonic
Orchestra; the Chicago Sinfonietta; the symphony orchestras of Elmhurst,
Sheboygan, DuPage, and Indian Hill; the Highland Park Strings; the New
Millennium Orchestra; and the Illinois Philharmonic. Kleijn has appeared at the
Marlboro Music Festival, on the Ravinia Festival’s Rising Star Series, with Chamber
Music Quad Cities, on the Vetta Chamber Music Series in Vancouver, and in
recital at the Maverick Concerts Series in Woodstock, New York.
An avid chamber musician, she has partnered with
pianists Christoph Eschenbach and Richard Goode, as well as cellist Lynn
Harrell, and she joined the Chicago Chamber Musicians in 2006. As a member of
the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), she toured Poland and Mexico and
performed the American premiere of Zona
for solo cello and seven instruments by Magnus Lindberg at the Mostly Mozart
Festival at Lincoln Center. She regularly performs on the CSO’s MusicNOW series
and was the soloist in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Kai. Her May 2007 American premiere of Eternal Escape by Dai Fujikura was described by John von Rhein of
the Chicago Tribune as “a five-minute
tour de force, played with wonderfully incisive bravado.” Her 2003 recording of
David Baker’s Cello Concerto with the Chicago Sinfonietta on the Cedille label
won rave reviews: The Strad magazine
writes that “Kleijn gives infectious energy to the performance”; Fanfare comments that “Kleijn brings
plenty of temperament and gorgeous tone to her solo part.”
Kleijn regularly performs in a variety of styles,
which can be heard at her website, myspace.com/katinkakleijn. She is a
member of the Greg Ward Sextet, the guitar-cello duo Relax Your Ears, and the
progressive rock metal band District 97 (myspace.com/district97). Relax
Your Ears’ record, available at cdbaby.com/styzens, was released April 2009
and named an Editor’s Pick by cdbaby.com.
To seek support for her younger colleagues, Kleijn
founded the Holland-America Music Society in 1999 and launched the annual HAMS
Competition for strings, distinguished by its first prize award—the full-time
use of a fine contemporary Dutch instrument and a CD.
After winning the Dutch Princess Christina
Competition at age 16, Kleijn studied with Laurence Lesser and Lynn Harrell
before joining the Chicago Symphony in 1995.
August 2009
