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Eva van Grinsven

With her broad palette of tone colours, her captivating stage presence and the tremendous joy she displays while playing, saxophonist Eva van Grinsven has won the hearts of both press and public time and time again in the last years.

Eva teaches classical saxophone at Conservatorium Maastricht since 2016. She has been invited to teach masterclasses at the conservatories of Bruxelles, Antwerp, Liège, Versailles, Würzburg, Osnabrück, Sevilla, Cordoba, Jaén, Palma di Mallorca, Riga, Innsbruck and Vienna.

Her busy and multifaceted performance practice often centres around chamber music, but Eva also performs as a solo artist (a.o. with Liepaja Symphony Orchestra, PHION, Dutch Youth String Orchestra) and with various music companies, including the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. But no matter what the musical setting or style may be, to Eva the story behind the notes always comes first.

In 2008, Eva graduated with honour from the Amsterdam Conservatory, where she studied with Arno Bornkamp. Also she followed a post-graduate course with Professor Daniel Gauthier at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne.

In that same year, her duo Sax & Stix won the Vriendenkrans, a prestigious prize that is awarded to promising young musicians every year by the Dutch Society for Friends of the Concertgebouw and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Many prizes and awards would follow.

With the Berlage Saxophone Quartet, Eva received both the Jury and the Public Award from the Dutch Classical Talent Award 2013 and the Kersjesprijs 2015, amongst others. Both Sax & Stix’s debut album and the three cd’s of the Berlage Saxophone Quartet received jubilant reviews from both the Dutch and the international music press.

Her passion for 1920s and 1930s saxophone music also led to performances and album recordings with the Dudok Quartet (Busch Quintett) and Café Dansant (with soprano singer & pianist). Since 2014 she forms a duo with pianist Helena Basilova, with whom she released in 2016 the album ¨Rendez-vous Russe¨, winning the prestigious German Echo Klassik Prize in 2017.