Jeroen Riemsdijk is a Dutch pianist shaped by tradition yet pushing artistic boundaries. He has diverse experience as a soloist, chamber musician, accompanist, educator, artistic leader, and writer, and regularly shares the stage with leading instrumentalists and singers.
As a senior lecturer at Conservatorium Maastricht in solo piano and the Master Accompaniment class, Riemsdijk sheds a bright light on the piano solo, duo, and chamber music repertoire spanning various historical periods. Through reevaluating traditional arm weight techniques, Mr. Riemsdijk has pioneered a holistic approach to piano playing that cultivates physical balance, efficiency, and ease. His classes are a fusion of practical skill-building and intellectual exploration, delving into topics such as personal 'authentic' interpretation informed by recent academic developments, the art of musical dialogue in duo playing, and the intricacies of sight reading. His approach has cultivated a generation of technically sound, emotionally expressive, and intellectually informed pianists and instrumentalists.
His discography includes solo and chamber music albums featuring world-CD premieres, and works by composers such as Zhelobinsky, Shostakovich, Debussy, and Zwaag. He has explored contemporary piano cycles of Estonian composers and delved into the early Romantic virtuoso period with a vibrant Friedrich Kalkbrenner album. His scholarship extends to publications in the Piano Bulletin, where he has shared insights on Kalkbrenner's 24 Preludes.
Riemsdijk earned his "Konzertdiplom" at the Folkwang Musikhochschule in Essen with Russian pianist Boris Bloch. At ARTEZ, with Ben Smits (a former student of Cornelius Berkhout, Clara Haskil, and Béla Siki, a pupil of Weiner and Dohnányi in Budapest), he finished his initial studies with 'distinction'. Riemsdijk was selected as a soloist for the Dutch Menuhin Foundation.
From 2009 to 2015, he was the Artistic Leader of the Masters on Stage series in Amsterdam, where his performances included complete chamber music cycles by Brahms (with musicians of Claudio Abbado’s Mozart Orchestra) and Beethoven. He organized the Altembrouck music series in Belgium.
For decades, he worked as a pianist with music companies such as Philzuid and Opera Zuid. In his early career, he taught at the Karlsruhe Hochschule, participated in children's opera productions with over 250 performances, and toured with the Band of the Dutch Royal Airforce (Rhapsody in Blue) and The Royal Band of the Belgian Guides (Petrushka).
Jeroen Riemsdijk's contribution to literature includes 'The Golden Fingers Technique: The Art of Passagework for Pianists' (2007), a seminal work introducing modern weight technique. His ongoing projects, ‘Balanced Technique’ and ‘Musical Expressive Dramaturgy’, offer fresh perspectives on piano playing and performance.
He has commissioned and premiered works by composers such as Chiel Meijering, Marijn Simons, Roel Van Oosten, Wim Zwaag, Galina Grigorjeva, Gerard Beljon, and Arno Dieteren.
As an acclaimed chamber musician and duo player, Riemsdijk has performed across major concert halls and festivals in Europe and has shared the stage with musicians from major orchestras including the KCO, Rotterdam Phil, Dutch Phil, Berlin Phil, and London Phil, and with eminent artists such as Gustav Rivinius, Levon Mouradian, Mirel Iancovici, Massimo Merceli, Philippe Bernold, Roeland Hendrikx, Marijn Simons, and many renowned Lied and Opera singers.
He occasionally joins minimalist Jeroen van Veen in Ten Holt's Canto Ostinato.