MY STORY

Svenja Staats (1996) is a Dutch classical violinist whose artistry is driven by a profound desire to turn sound into lived emotion. Known for her communicative presence on stage, she approaches music as a living language—one that invites intimacy, imagination, and curiosity. Svenja does not shy away from improvisation or cross-genre exploration; elements of jazz, pop, and contemporary styles naturally find their way into her musical thinking and her own compositions, enriching her performances with spontaneity and personal expression. For Svenja, music is not only about precision and mastery, but about connection—between composer and performer, between performer and listener, and ultimately between sound and emotion.

Career

Svenja is frequently invited as a principal and substitute player with among others Amsterdam Sinfonietta and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest. She is concertmaster of Kamerata Zuid, a role that reflects both her musical leadership and her ability to shape an ensemble sound with clarity and sensitivity. As her career developed, Svenja began performing extensively as a soloist at national and international concert venues and festivals. Her performances have taken her across Europe, Asia, and North and South America, with appearances in countries including Argentina, Canada, Turkey, Greece, China and the United States. In addition to her performance career, Svenja collaborates in a wide range of musical projects, exploring both classical and innovative repertoire, and is active as a teacher, working with individual students during lessons and masterclasses as well as with groups to develop their violin technique.

Svenja Staats does not play the violin, she ís the violin.

Education

Svenja was accepted at the age of eight into the Sweelinck Academy for highly talented young musicians at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. By the age of fourteen she had already received significant recognition, winning both First Prize and the Audience Award at the Princess Christina Competition in The Hague. That same year, she was awarded Second Prize at the International Georg Philipp Telemann Violin Competition in Poznań, Poland. In May 2020, Svenja graduated with honors from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (USA), where she completed her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance under the guidance of Alexander Kerr. During her time in the United States, she performed extensively in operas, musicals, ballet productions, and concert settings. She has participated in masterclasses with internationally renowned violinists including Jaap van Zweden, Ana Chumachenko, Ray Chen, Vadim Gluzman, David Takeno, Ani Kavafian, Augustin Dumay, Igor Ozim, and Joshua Bell. For several consecutive years, she was selected to take part in the Violin Masterclass in Athens, led by Leonidas Kavakos.

Performances

Beyond the concert hall, Svenja has performed at events of international significance, bringing classical music into broader public contexts. In March 2014, she was invited to perform at the opening ceremony of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, an event attended by U.S. President Barack Obama and 58 other world leaders, and in July 2015, she performed with the Dutch pop band Vangrail during the start of the Tour de France in Utrecht, playing for an audience of over 12,000 people. These moments illustrate her belief that classical music can exist vibrantly within contemporary culture and reach listeners far beyond traditional settings.

- Svenja performs on a Camillus Camilli violin built in Mantua in 1745, paired with a Pierre Simon bow dating from around 1870, both generously loaned to her by a benefactor -