Born in Amsterdam in December of 1960, Jaap van Zweden began his musical career studying the violin. Van Zweden entered The Juilliard School at age 16 as a student of Dorothy DeLay and, at age 19, was invited to join the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra as concertmaster. Van Zweden, who spent the next sixteen years as concertmaster at the Concertgebouw, began conducting part-time in 1994, and performed his last concert as a violinist in 1997.

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