For the first time this season, Artist in Residence Simone Lamsma takes to the stage here at the Hall later this month – and we can’t wait. We caught up with Simone to talk about her year with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the works she’ll be performing, and her glittering career so far.  

Simone Lamsma was just a toddler at home in Friesland when she saw and heard her first violin – on the television.  

Despite not understanding what it was, she was captivated. And the die was cast.  

More than three decades on, Lamsma is one of classical music’s most sought-after young violin virtuosos with an expansive repertoire and a busy concert schedule. This season sees her criss-crossing Europe and North America, and taking to the stage in two performances in Japan, including at Tokyo’s prestigious Suntory Hall.  

In the midst of all that, she is also the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Artist in Residence, following in the recent footsteps of Roderick Williams, Pacho Flores, Jennifer Johnston, Stephen Hough and Sir Bryn Terfel.  

"It's really an honour to be asked to be artist in residence," she says, "because in this case it comes from our previous collaborations. So it’s a wonderful feeling. There is a great connection – not just with the Orchestra but with the whole team."  

Lamsma made her debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra when she was barely out of her teens, playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.  

 She has returned to Hope Street many times since then, with recent appearances including the Bruch Violin Concerto in 2019, Korngold in 2021, and then – in July 2022 – stepping in at short notice to play Shostakovich in a White Nights concert alongside Vasily Petrenko.  

 “I think that there’s really a great mutual respect and admiration for each other,” she continues on her relationship with the Orchestra. “I always feel that the atmosphere is so warm and so collegial, and I really love that. I’m very sensitive to atmosphere and to people. 

 “Music making is all about connecting, so it’s a very personal thing for me. And with this orchestra it’s just always felt very natural, very open, and direct, and it really feels like I’m there making chamber music with the group.  

 “They are of course an orchestra of amazing quality, but they’re also so communicative and so quick. You feel they’re with you, it’s like they have instant reaction.  

 “Through the years we’ve been able to build a trust together, and that’s really special.” 

 In this first of two concerts this season, Lamsma is playing Brahms’ Double Concerto, appearing alongside cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière. It’s a work that was written from the heart (as a peace offering from Brahms to his good friend Joseph Joachim who had fallen out with him for reasons outlined later in these notes) and, she says, one that gives her a huge feeling of joy to play.  

 Lamsma explains: “Somehow, for me, this piece just radiates warmth and love. The friendship was actually finally restored when Brahms gave this manuscript to Joachim, and it had the inscription ‘to him for whom it was written’.  

 "There is a beautiful message behind the notes and I feel that this piece is just a perfect marriage between the cello, violin and orchestra.  

"All this wonderful dialogue, the singing melodies – it's so rich and passionate, and all this in the Late Romantic tradition. I always think of the opening theme of the second movement, and I just think ah, who cannot love this piece of music? It's so touching, so beautiful."  

Happily, then, for the violinist, the Orchestra is scheduled to perform the concert three times over three successive evenings – first here at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and then in Cardiff and Nottingham.  

Remaining within the Romantic canon, Lamsma will return to Liverpool early in the new year to play Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, written by a man who had wanted to be a virtuoso violinist himself, and which Lamsma calls “possibly the greatest Romantic violin concerto of all time.”  

"This concerto has such a unique intensity to it and evokes so much feeling but also so many images and colours and layers," she says. "You can feel in every note he put his whole heart and soul into this music.  

"You hear and feel his love for the instrument, and also his knowledge – combining this together with his mastery of symphonic writing, he has created an incredible masterpiece."  

The Sibelius is one of dozens of works in Lamsma’s wide-ranging repertoire, built over a career forged after spending her formative years studying in Britain, first at the Yehudi Menuhin School and then at the Royal Academy of Music. In 2019, she was awarded the prestigious accolade of becoming a Fellow of the Academy.  

 She was 11 when she first arrived at the Yehudi Menuhin School, travelling home to the Netherlands every few weeks. Juggling travel to music lessons and theory classes at home had become increasingly difficult, but it must still have been a big decision to make.  

Lamsma agrees: "It's a huge decision you make as a family. For me it was somehow a relief to be among people who were like me, who had the same passion for music and were so serious about it.  

“But was it difficult? Yes, for sure. I was very, very homesick. It’s a huge step to take. I was 11 and to be without my family was really difficult. The most important thing when you’re young is to have great support around you and I was lucky enough to have that.  

“My family saw that I had a passion and was serious about it and they just really tried to find what was out there, and what was the best for all of us – for the whole family.  

 “They always told me that if it didn’t work out, if it was not for me, that that was fine too. I could just come back and we’d find another way.”  

She has never, she says, mapped out a career path with specific goals and ambitions to appear in certain venues or work with certain people, concentrating instead on playing works that speak to her and on her own performance.  

She smiles: "I'm really grateful to be in a position that I can now work pretty much only with people and orchestras that I love working with and to play in beautiful concert halls.  

"But I am always searching to deepen my interpretations and I'm always striving to get the best out of the music. For me, hard work remains my top priority so that I can really do the music justice. That's always the most important – and this is a never-ending journey. It's a wonderful and rewarding one but it's also challenging and 24/7 so it's very intense.  

"But for me it's the only way I can do this. I feel that's a responsibility I have towards the music.  

"And of course, the repertoire is endless. That's a wonderful thing – there will always be things that I'd love to learn, and that will never end."