Jan Schultsz
Jan Schultsz was born in Amsterdam in 1965, where he first took piano lessons at the age of 4 and commenced horn lessons at the age of 10. Emphasis was laid on both these instruments during his student years under Jan Wijn and Adriaan van Woudenberg at the Sweelinck Conservatoire in Amsterdam. In 1986, he removed to Basle, where he continued his studies of the horn among other instruments at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under Thomas Mueller and at the Conservatoire in Lausanne under Bruno Schneider. He was finally awarded the Premier Prix de Virtuosité and played in numerous orchestras, such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Orchestra Hilversum, in the Basle Orchestras, the Camerata in Berne and in various Baroque ensembles such as the Concerto Cologne, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the Clementi Consort.
Jan Schultsz ended his studies of the pianoforte at the Basle Conservatoire under Lasszlo Gyimesi and Peter Efler. As a concert pianist, he gave concerts together with singers and instrumentalists in many countries of Europe; he was a co-founder of the Basle Chamber Ensemble and appeared as a soloist with the Basle Orchestras and with various chamber orchestras. He accompanied the master courses of Hermann Baumann and Paul Tortelier and lead the Lieder and Oratorio Class at the Bruckner Conservatoire in Linz. In 1996, the young artist gave his debut at the Carnegie Hall, New York with the Finnish Cellist, Marko Ylönen. He has also collaborated at the Zurich Opera House. At the present time, he is a professor at the Winterthur Conservatoire.
From 1991 to 1995, Jan Schultsz absolved studies for the position of orchestral leader in Basle, Berne and Zurich under Horst Stein, Manfred Honeck, Wilfried Boettcher and Ralf Weikert. He took part in courses on conducting under Jorma Panula in Helsinki and under Sir Edward Downes in the Kyrill Konrashin Conductors Master Classes in the Netherlands. He has also studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire under Prof. I. A. Musin. The young conductor repeatedly enjoyed successes in working with youth and conservatoire orchestras.
He has appeared as a guest conductor with many orchestras in Europe. In this position, he has conducted the Chamber Orchestra in Basle, Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, the Basle Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Hungarian State Orchestra in Budapest, the Orchestre de Chambre of Geneva, the RTL Orchestra in Luxembourg, the Orchestra Company of Bienne, the City of Winterthur Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Hilversum and the Orchestre de Chambre at Neuchâtel at which he has been retained as musical director as from 1999. He was engaged as orchestral leader at the Norsk Opera in Oslo and conducted the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. Jan Schultsz has also contributed to numerous radio and television programmes. He has won several awards and scholarships.
Jan Schultsz has recorded several recordings of works by composers such as Bellini, Delibes, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Rossini, Schumann and Verdi. He often works with soloist such as Elena Mosuc, Jénö Jandó, Birgit Remmert and Felix Renggli.
Maestro Schultsz was appointed as jury for the final of the first International Altenburg Competition in 1996.
Maestro Schultsz recently toured Asia with the Gstaad Menuhin Festival Orchestra and soloist Lynnette Seah, as a part of the orchestra and festival's 50th anniversary celebration.