Hans Eijsackers
Hans Eijsackers is a Dutch pianist and composer, born in The Hague on 15 February 1967.
He studied with Gérard van Blerk, Jan Wijn and György Sebök. In 1992 he graduated with distinction as a performing musician from the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. He was then invited to study at the European Mozart Academy in Kraków, which led to performances in Budapest, Southeast Asia, Cornwall and New York.
Eijsackers won the Rotterdam Piano Three-Day Festival, the Princess Christina Competition and the European Piano Competition in Luxembourg in 1991, where he performed Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in the final. He also received the Concertgebouw's Silver Friends' Wreath twice.
From 2000 to 2007, he was pianist of the Hexagon Ensemble, performing with the group in the Netherlands, the United States and at Wigmore Hall in London. He teaches principal-study piano and chamber music at the conservatories in Tilburg and The Hague, and performs as a soloist, chamber musician and vocal accompanist.
His solo programmes have included Hommage and Bella Italia. His concerto repertoire includes Beethoven's Third and Fourth Piano Concertos, Rachmaninoff's Second, Mozart piano concertos with Holland Symfonia, Brahms with the Chemnitz Philharmonic, and Martinů with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. He also performs solo music by Francis Poulenc and Erik Satie.
Since a 2001 Rising Stars tour that included recitals at Carnegie Hall in New York and Wigmore Hall in London, Eijsackers has formed a duo with clarinettist Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer. They recorded Max Reger's complete sonatas. As a vocal accompanist, he has performed frequently with Xenia Meijer, Geert Smits and Henk Neven; with Neven, he won the Mees Pierson Prize in May 2008. He is also the regular pianist for the International Vocal Competition in 's-Hertogenbosch.
He has appeared at the Orlando Festival, the Grachten Festival, the Gergiev Festival, the Festival di Musica Classica di Linari and the Toon Festival. Since 2007, he has been artistic director of the Uitgast Festival, a summer outdoor music event in the nature park in Lelystad. From October 2013, he has held a professorship in vocal coaching at the Robert Schumann University of Music in Düsseldorf.