Jelger Blanken

Dutch pianist Jelger Blanken graduated from the Conservatory of Amsterdam as a student of Ludmilla Baslawskaja and Håkon Austbø in 2002. That same year, Jelger won the prestigious Medal of the Friends of the Concertgebouw and the ‘Eduard van Beinum’ scholarship. Jelger has performed regularly on Dutch concert podiums with a variety of ensembles, and in multiple musical theatre productions. As a chamber musician, he has performed with internationally renowned musicians such as Nobuko Imai, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Božo Paradžik, Philippe Graffin, David Waterman, and Raphael Wallfish.

Together with baritone Henk Neven, he performed at a vast range of Dutch concert halls in 2004 and 2005. He took part in the chamber music series entitled ‘Members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’. Jelger has performed at many international festivals, such as the second Franz Liszt Festival in Utrecht, the Grachten Festival in Amsterdam, the Dopper Festival (with the Farkas Quintet), and the Rovigo Cello City Festival (with Floris Mijnders). In 2010, he played a programme of Dutch early contemporary pieces in the Rotterdam Gergiev Festival, together with violinist Philippe Graffin. Most of these pieces were recorded on CD for Onyx Classic in 2011. His playing received high praise from music magazines such as Gramophone, The Strad and the International Record Review.

Jelger worked as an accompanist and instrumental coach in the concert series and masterclasses of The International Holland Music Sessions, the Internationale Masterclass Apeldoorn, and the International Chamber Music Festival Schiermonnikoog.

Since 2003, he has been an instrumental coach and accompanist at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In 1998, Jelger earned his Master’s Degree in Art and Cultural Sciences at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He is currently putting the finishing touches to his dissertation on networking and dispositions in the world of modern classical music in The Netherlands since 1945.