He is a violist, conductor, composer, arranger and songwriter who started to play music when he was just seven years old and took his musical studies in viola at Groningen, The Royal Conservatory at The Hague, graduating in 1998. He then attended Hanover’s Hochschule fur Musik for the next two years. He went to London where he took further studies in conducting with the British conductor Tim Redmond as well as attending masterclasses with another British conductor, Peter Stark.
In 2000 he became a musician with the Festival d’Art Lyrique in Aix-de-Provence. He was then invited to take the position of Co-Principal Viola by the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra in 2001 and within a year had became a member of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. He has been a member of the Tate Ensemble chamber group in London and also performs nationally in the Netherlands and internationally as a member of the Ruysdael Quartet, with whom he took part in the International String Quartet Competition and was awarded the 2001 Prix de la SACEM in Bordeaux. With the quartet he was also awarded the Kersjes van de Groenekan Prize for their contribution to Dutch chamber music in 2006.
He is the artistic director of the Riccotti Ensemble, which he has conducted since 2006. He also led the Metamorphosen string orchestra since 2008 and has been called upon to conduct other orchestras and ensembles within England and back home in The Netherlands. He has also been in involved with musical theatre productions and worked with Duo Het Leven as an accompanist and songwriter.
Often called upon to perform as a soloist, he has given performances, including viola concertos, by composers that include Bela Bartok, George Benjamin, Pierre Boulez, John Cage and Hans Henkemans and Mozart.
Maintaining an active in interest in writing music he has written arrangements and compositions, including commissions for Rational Rec and Ah! You Sitting Comfortably, that have been performed on BBC Radio 3, at the Bath Festival and by orchestras and ensembles that include the Dutch Students Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of The Netherlands and the Riccotti Ensemble.
Here he is conducting the Ricotti Ensemble in a performance of his “Hill, Bill and Gill”…
Sources:
- http://www.gijskramers.nl/aboutgijs.htm
- http://www.gijskramers.nl/
- http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/orchestra/players/violas/gijs_kramers/
- http://www.ricciotti.nl/index.php?id=91
- http://www.metamorphosen.nl/
- http://nl-nl.facebook.com/people/Gijs-Kramers/1267843628