About Eva

Concertmaster, director, soloist

Stegeman presently is first concertmaster of the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss and the Nootstroom Orkest Friesland. With the European Union Chamber Orchestra, she has worked as a director/leader from the first chair since 2003. She worked as concertmaster of Sinfonia Rotterdam from 2007 to 2012 and lead/directed a series of full-staged performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2007 Thansau/Germany).
 

As concertmaster and director, she made regular guest appearances with orchestras such as the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, the Noord Nederlands Orkest, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, LUDWIG, Het Orkest van het Oosten, Casco Phil (Belgische Kamerfilharmonie), the former Radio Kamer Filharmonie and the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra (South-Korea). As a soloist Stegeman appeared with orchestras such as the Orfeo Orchester Budapest, the European Union Chamber Orchestra, Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, the Bielefelder Symphoniker and the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss. During festivals Eva leads and directs ad-hoc-formations and chamber orchestras that she builds into close-knit and passionate ensembles in a very short period of time.

Festival director

Stegeman is founder (2003) and the driving artistic force behind Classical Encounters, the annual international chamber music festival in the region Den Haag-Leiden. Under her direction the festival has established an international reputation of high artistic quality and innovative programming. Classical Encounters was awarded the ‘EFFE label’ three times, Europe’s quality stamp for remarkable arts festivals showing their engagement in the field of the arts, community involvement and international openness by the European Festival Asscociation. At the 15-year jubilee celebration of Classical Encounters in 2018 Stegeman was awarded with the ‘Stadspenning’ of the city of The Hague - a prestigeous municipal award for her significant and unique contribution to the local cultural scene. More recently, on May 17th 2020 in the middle of the first lockdown during the corona pandemic, Classical Encounters was the first Dutch festival to realise an online edition: a livestream of 6 hours of music with musicians performing both on site and via direct internet connections to their different locations elsewhere in Europe. The Online Edition was attended by 5.000 viewers from 16 different countries.

Chamber Music and Ensembles

As a chamber musician Stegeman performed for many years with the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam (2002-2011), a close-knit ensemble specialising in music from 1600-1800, touring Europe, Japan, Russia, the Baltic States, Mexico and South-America. With Combattimento she took part in numerous CD-recordings and radio broadcasts. Stegeman is founding member of the Cristofori Piano Quartet with whom she recorded the piano quartets by Schumann and Beethoven (2006). With the Leupold Trio (2003-2012) she recorded a CD with Italian baroque repertoire for the label Challenge Records (2010). As primarius of the Doelen Ensemble (2008-2013) she focussed on 20^th and 21^st century repertoire and with The Hortus Ensemble she explored historically informed performace practise around teh erard piano (1850-1950). With actor/musicologist Huib Ramaer and pianist Tobias Borsboom she develops interdisciplinary storytelling programmes such as about the musical friendship of Edvard Grieg and Julius Röntgen or the adventurous musical life of the Swedish violinist and composer Amanda Maier. Together with jazz pianist and composer Rembrandt Frerichs, Stegeman currently works on various projects exploring new musical encounters of jazz and classical music.

Guest at (inter)national festivals

Outside Holland Stegeman has performed and given masterclasses at numerous international chamber music festivals such as in Germany (Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Fränkische Musiktage, Rheingau Musik Festival and festivo/Aschau in Chiemgau), Italy (Spoleto, Festival Emiglia Romagna, Ravello Festival), France (La Folle Journée Nantes, Bach en Combrailles), England (Bath Music Festival, Exeter Music Festival), Estonia (Tallinn - Glasperlenspiel), and Belgium (Festival de Wallonie and Flanders Festival). In the Netherlands Stegeman was a guest at the Gergiev Festival Rotterdam, the Peter de Grote Festival Groningen, Wonderfeel, the Hortus Festival, Muze van Zuid, and the Grachtenfestival Amsterdam. She also appeared at well-known jazz-festivals such as the Bologna Jazz Festival and North Sea Jazz Rotterdam with the Doelen Ensemble and American jazz legend Steve Coleman.

Juror, teacher, projects

Since 2016, Stegeman is chamber music teacher at both Codarts Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Rotterdam and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. As a jury member she worked for the Josef Micka Violin Competition (Prague), the Prinses Christina Concours and Het Nederlands Vioolconcours.

Eva initializes, organizes and performs different projects, such as Beethoven and the guitar (with Izhar Elias) and Musik am Nachmittag.

Education, masterclasses, contests

Having received her first violin lessons from Lenneke Willems and Joyce Tan she went on to study with Davina van Wely at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. At the Guildhall School she was awarded the M. Warsaw Chamber Music Award.
In 1995 she was the 2nd prize winner at the National Oskar Back violin competition, performing the Beethoven concerto at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam under the baton of Wiktor Liberman. For several years she was concertmaster of the National Youth Orchestra of Holland and was part of the first violin group of the European Union Youth Orchestra for 4 years. During international masterclasses György Sebök, Herman Krebbers, Boris Belkin, Wiktor Liberman and Lorrand Fenyves were significant sources of inspiration.

Stegeman plays a G.B. Rogeri (Brescia) violin from around 1680.