ABOUT
Biography
Both his parents were musical. His English grandmother was an excellent classical pianist, his father played violin and piano. His mother sang beautifully. Edmond’s first inspiration was when his father played for him when he was 6 years old. It was at that age he started listening to the recordings of Jascha Heifetz, the young Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrach… Those reference-recordings put that beautiful violin-tone in his ear. Because his family had other plans with him he started the violin at a later age, but by then he knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted to play these beautiful violinconcertos that his parents listened to when he was young. He had a few years tuition in The Netherlands with a teacher from the school of Carl Flesch by the name of Han Beekman. From there on he had a bit of guidance of great violinists in Holland: Jaap van Zweden, Christiaan Bor and Joan Berkhemer who considered him a natural and inventive violinist. Basically he is therefore to be considered an autodidact. In 2006 he had masterclasses with Pierre Amoyal, a pupil of Jascha Heifetz, especially working on Tchaikowski violin concerto and Laurent Korcia, who became a friend, at the Conservatoire de Nice. He played his first violin concerto with orchestra (Vivaldi g-major) after 3 years of playing the violin. After that first concert he never stopped performing. Always enjoying the stage. A few years later in 1988 when he studied at Leiden University he won the First Prize in the prestigious Inter-Academic Chambermusic Competition with Mahler’s piano-quartet. It was then that he was invited in 1989 to play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in the great Hall of the RTL-television in Luxemburg. The violin has always meant the world to him. The tone, the vibrations, the frequency, the closeness to the human voice, the infinity of its colors, the healing and consoling capacity and the source of great amounts of energy. Especially the older generation violinists were his idols; Heifetz, Kreisler, Oistrach, but also Ida Haendel, Grumiaux, Franzescatti and of course Ivry Gitlis, Christian Ferras, Perlman, Zukerman, Kyung wa Chung, David Nadien, nowadays, Leonidas Kavakos and lately Charlie Siem with whom we see many similarities. As he admires the old-school romantic violin-playing he has elements of that in his playing and especially in his tone. He has, for an autodidact, remarkable ease with complicated virtuoso techniques like in Paganini, Wieniawski, Ernst and Vieuxtemps. Maybe the fact that he is a left-hander helps…
In 2006 he had masterclasses with Pierre Amoyal, a pupil of Jascha Heifetz, especially working on Tchaikowski violin concerto and Laurent Korcia, who became a friend, at the Conservatoire de Nice. He played his first violin concerto with orchestra (Vivaldi g-major) after 3 years of playing the violin. After that first concert he never stopped performing. Always enjoying the stage. A few years later in 1988 when he studied at Leiden University he won the First Prize in the prestigious Inter-Academic Chambermusic Competition with Mahler’s piano-quartet. It was then that he was invited in 1989 to play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in the great Hall of the RTL-television in Luxemburg. The violin has always meant the world to him. The tone, the vibrations, the frequency, the closeness to the human voice, the infinity of its colors, the healing and consoling capacity and the source of great amounts of energy. Especially the older generation violinists were his idols; Heifetz, Kreisler, Oistrach, but also Ida Haendel, Grumiaux, Franzescatti and of course Ivry Gitlis, Christian Ferras, Perlman, Zukerman, Kyung wa Chung, David Nadien, nowadays, Leonidas Kavakos and lately Charlie Siem and the great Nemanja Radulovic. As he admires the old-school romantic violin-playing he has elements of that in his playing and especially in his tone. He has remarkable ease with complicated virtuoso techniques like in Paganini, Wieniawski, Ernst and Vieuxtemps. His repertoire consists of many of the well-known violin war-horses but he makes easy cross-overs because he improvises well. For Edmond music supersedes language by far. It is what music can say to people through the violin, through his hands that drives him to practice and play everyday. Music is educational, it develops the brain, therapeutic and comforting, loving and all embracing. That music unites people is something Edmond knows well as he played with many musician from gipsy to rock, baroque to modern classics but mainly classical romantic all over the globe. The past year he has performed in many private recitals and in various countries and places. Some recent highlights: Christmas-concert in Afghanistan for the international troops with the German Minister of Defense; a memorable peace-concert in St-Moritz, Switzerland; concerts in some German houses and Castles, Germany; and many others in Spain, Holland, Germany, and other countries. Very recently the Care for Talent Foundation for which he organised with his good friend Jochem Geene, chairman of the Foundation, a very successful presentation concert in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. End of october Edmond will play in Carnegie Hall on request of the Paganini-family in a tribute to Niccolo Paganini, a tremendous honour. He will be playing a beautiful 1722 Guarneri del Gésu. The Fokker-family is known in Holland for airplanes and other good reasons, the Dutch public knows him from regular tv-appearances with and without violin.
2016 was an important year for Edmond Fokker van Crayestein and his violin. The instrument he is currently playing is a beautiful Andrea Guarneri from Cremona, Italy, 1680. An instrument with the typical deep but golden Guarneri-sound and the roundness that we find in Stradivarius and other top-violins of that golden era. This is the year in which he will start recording which he hitherto did not do. He will record some of his favorite pieces like the Bruch violin concerto, some solo Bach and Paganini and some violin/piano repertoire. Later this year Edmond is granted the great honor of playing for HH the Pope in the Vatican. All in all, 2016 is a remarkable and exciting year for Edmond where developments go fast. Concert’s, recordings, charity-gala’s and television performances, a lot is happening! Furthermore, interesting to know what might add to the depth of his storytelling on the violin is the fact that he holds a masters-degree from Leiden University and later graduated at Harvard Business School. He was a high- ranking officer in the Dutch Ministry of Defense and saw a lot of the world, including warzones. Edmond is able to translate his experiences into music into his violin which is his everlasting and undeniable passion and on-going affair. A life dedicated to music and giving people the joy and consolation, the beauty and reassurance is what he lives for. To quote him “…Music can change the world into a warmer, more loving place, where joy, mildness and respect prevail…”.