Amsterdam-born Jaap van Zweden has risen rapidly in little more than a decade to become one of today’s most sought-after conductors. He has been Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2008, and is also Honorary Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Radio Chamber Orchestras (having been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director from 2005-2011). In January 2012 he was announced as Music Director Designate of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, where he will take up the post of Music Director in September 2012, for an initial contract of four years. Appointed at nineteen as the youngest concertmaster ever of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, he began his conducting career in 1995 and held the positions of Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (1996-2000), Chief Conductor of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague (2000-2005), and Chief Conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra (2008-2011). In November 2011 van Zweden was named as the recipient of Musical America's Conductor of the Year Award 2012 in recognition of his critically acclaimed work as Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and as a guest conductor with the most prestigious US orchestras.

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"A pure musician, van Zweden does not require hype or engage in theatrical gestures on or off the podium. […] his skills and rapport with the Bruckner-steeped Chicago Symphony were such that the 80-minute symphony [no. 5] was clearly etched, balanced and gripping from beginning to end. On the strength of this remarkable debut, I would go to hear Van Zweden conduct anything, anywhere. "

Andrew Patner, Chicago Sun Times, October 2008

"Mahler’s popular First Symphony was the major work [Jaap van Zweden] chose for his Philharmonic debut. From the dynamic, all-out performance he conducted, it seems clear that he came to town determined to make music and make an impression. He did both on Thursday. If the performance was sometimes too feisty and intense, it was certainly exciting. [...] In the second movement, a sort of hardy scherzo, Mr. van Zweden captured the heavy-footed, folk-dance spirit, though the playing was almost rigidly emphatic. [...] The slow movement, seemingly a funeral march, was very good, played with rustic character and just enough rawness to convey the implied parody. Mahler marks the opening of the finale “With violent movement,” and for that, the kinetic Mr. van Zweden is your man. He drew blazing playing from the orchestra, which contrasted with the dreamy beauty of the lyrical midsection. After the rousing brassy fanfare brought the piece to an end, the audience erupted in an ovation that rivaled Ms. Wang’s, which is saying something."

Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

"How easy it would be to start this review with a picture and a blazing review of Yuja Wang and the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto. That was until Fate intervened in the person of a young Dutch conductor. Because Jaap van Zweden conducted Mahler’s First Symphony. And all the praise I expected and obtained from Yuja Wang evaporated in the mists of the Mahler performance. [...] If one had to characterize the van Zweden performance, it would be “bracing”. Nothing was Grieg-pretty-pretty with the sunrise. After the six-part harmonics of the opening, those bird-calls meant business. [...] That was the mood of the following dances, which were actually danceable. The illusion was that Mr. van Zweden was taking the pace quicker than usual. The reality was that the rhythms were sharp, his upbeats gave every note its adrenaline. [...] The finale was controlled fire. I have heard more passionate endings, more endings which retained the dissonance of the first chord. But Mr. van Zweden’s fire never seared: it was blazing, it was tense, and the recapitulations of earlier themes were swirled around like dreams before Mahler’s own twilight of the gods. [...] Every Mahler is memorable. This was a very very great Mahler performance"

Harry Rolnick, ww.concertonet.com

"Friday night’s performance, at the Meyerson Symphony Center, was as electrifying as you’ll hear anywhere. Again and again, ears marveled at sounds van Zweden was getting out of the orchestra: a white-hot mass of violin tone, a warm wash of violas, a velvet nap of cellos, the winds’ eloquent phrasings, the razor-sharp assaults of brass. This was sinewy, not sentimental Tchaikovsky, but with warmth aplenty."

Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News

"Van Zweden’s direction of this charged, grief-stricken war music was electrifyingly intense, and produced some terrifyingly intense playing from the LPO, magnificently on the top of its form. [...] This was music-making that gripped from the start, with Jaap van Zweden guiding us through the seething orchestral detail with an unfailingly accurate, imaginative ear, the LPO delivering this burden of anguish with playing of unflinching intensity. "

Peter Reed, classicalsource.com

"I’ve heard the famous orchestras of Berlin, Vienna, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Cleveland. I cannot recall orchestral music-making as gripping or as lovingly expressive as what Jaap van Zweden got out of the Dallas Symphony on Saturday night. [...] The overture and symphony, both with plenty of outdoorsy energies, were marvels of visceral urgency, dramatic timing and elaborately nuanced dynamics. Rare’s the conductor with van Zweden’s feeling for how phrases rise and fall, how they accumulate into broader musical sentences and paragraphs, and when the music wants to breathe. Again and again, one marveled at inner voices brought out just so."

Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News

"Van Zweden's Bruckner is not monumental so much as yearningly expressive; its great paragraphs are not hewn from granite but carefully moulded to fit, and powered with an extraordinary dramatic energy. It was swift, too: 75 minutes is very much on the short side for performances of the Eighth, but nothing seemed rushed or hastily considered – just guided on an utterly sure path from first note to last."

5 stars, Andrew Clements, The Guardian

" I was struck by the performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony that van Zweden and the BSO pulled out after intermission. They were working against withering heat and humidity, and that generalized summer lethargy that sometimes collects around the umpteenth airing of any Beethoven symphony [yet] they summoned a lean and crackling performance that wedded inevitability and surprise. For his part, van Zweden radiated energy from the podium [...] and led the orchestra as if he expected nothing less than exactly what he received. "

Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe