aaron janse

Aaron Janse has performed across the globe as both a violinist and violist. Washington Post critic Daniel Gawthrop wrote of him, “Rarely have I heard Ravel’s Tzigane played with such intensity and authority.” After he performed Paganini’s First Violin Concerto, the El Paso Herald-Post called him “a tour-de-force at any age.” OpusColorado wrote "I do not think I have ever heard a violist get so much depth of tone out of his instrument as Aaron Janse. It was absolutely mind boggling".

Janse has performed, toured and recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic as a violist under Bernard Haitink, Daniel Barenboim and Sir Simon Rattle. He has performed frequently as a violist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at both Symphony Center and the Ravinia Festival.

He has collaborated in numerous chamber music performances with reknowned artists Gil Shaham, Adele Anthony, Joseph Silverstein, Charles Castleman, Stephen Hough, Osmo Vanska, Andrew Litton, Edward Arron, Brinton Smith, Ittai Shapira, and the late Alicia de Larrocha. He has appeared at festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, Cincinnati’s Linton Series, the Las Vegas Music Festival and the Alpenglow Festival in Colorado. He is also a member of The Musical Offering, the longest running Twin Cities chamber ensemble.

As recipient of the Fritz Kreisler Scholarship, he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Dorothy DeLay, and Joel Smirnoff of the Juilliard String Quartet. His chamber music studies include extensive work with Felix Galimir, Zoltán Székely (premiered Bartok's Violin Concerto), Joseph Fuchs, Eugene Becker, as well as the Juilliard and Guarneri String Quartets. At Juilliard, he served as teaching fellow for the legendary pedagogue Dorothy DeLay as well as concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra.

He also very much counts amongst his most influential teachers Daniel Heifetz, Piotr Milewsky, and the late Robert Semon, a Carl Flesch disciple who fled Nazi Germany to settle in El Paso, TX.

A violinist with the world renowned Minnesota Orchestra, he also enjoys teaching both violin and viola and has a number of recent students on both instruments at several of the most respected music conservatories such as Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University at Bloomington, and Eastman School of Music, as well as the elite universities Princeton, Brown, Emory, Carleton, and Georgetown.