Sunday, February 19, 2023

Ilona Sie Dhian Ho




Teaching Dates : English, Dutch

Ilona Sie Dhian Ho is professor of Violin at the Royal Conservatoire and the Prince Claus Conservatoire in the Netherlands. Next to her professorship she is teaching at the Shenzhen Arts School in China and has given masterclasses in the USA and throughout Europe, most recently (2022) at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule in Berlin. Since 2018 she is a member of the Artistic Board of Dutch Violin Competitions.

Her first performance at age 13 was broadcasted live by Dutch National Radio. She was described as a “genuinely solistic personality” in the review of her performance of the Beethoven violin concerto in the Concertgebouw (De Volkskrant). As concertmaster of the Jeunesses Musicales World Youth Orchestra she performed the Manhattan Concerto by Siegried Matthus in major concert halls like the Berlin Philharmonic.

She graduated in The Netherlands with Davina van Wely and continued her education in the USA, for which she was awarded a Fulbright Grant and scholarships by several funds like the Netherlands-America foundation and Fund for the Performing Arts. She studied in the US with Mauricio Fuks, a student of Ivan Galamian and Jascha Heifetz, and chamber music with Rostislav Dubinsky, the founder of the Borodin Quartet.

She discovered her passion for teaching when she worked as Fuks’assistant at masterclasses in Salzburg (Sommer Akademie Mozarteum) and Paris (Chateau de Champs). Subsequently she taught young talented violinists at the USA String Academy in Bloomington, Indiana.

After a short career as performer, she devoted herself to teaching entirely. She was appointed Professor of Violin at Dutch Conservatoires aged 28 and has established an acclaimed international class with young talents as well as Master students. Her approach of making students independent by teaching them how to practice, has been used to develop an elective at conservatoires. She has also given several workshops for violin pedagogues, organized by the European String Teachers Association.

Next to her teaching activities Ilona Sie Dhian Ho has started a research group to develop ways to successfully give classical concerts for children, in collaboration with Leiden University.

She plays a Lorenzo Ventapane violin (1802) and Charles Peccatte bow.