Skip to main content

Biography

The Dutch guitarist Han Jonkers studied guitar with Hans-Lutz Niessen at the Maastricht College of Music (music education and soloist’s diploma), at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena with Oscar Ghiglia (Diploma di Merito), and at the Basel Academy of Music with Konrad Ragossnig and Oscar Ghiglia (soloist’s diploma).

Han Jonkers was prizewinner at the 1983 Viña del Mar Competition in Chile, and in 1985 at the Maria Canals Competition in Barcelona.

Han Jonkers has lived in Switzerland since 1981, and has appeared as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles on all continents. He teaches summer courses at the Arosa (Switzerland) Music Festival. Together with the flutist Bruno Meier, he has performed regularly in Belarus, within the framework of canton Aargau’s partnership with that country, and given master classes at the Minsk College of Music. Concert tours have taken him throughout South America (Chile, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia) and Asia (Korea). In March 2007 he toured New Zealand for the first time, with solo recitals and workshops at the University of Hamilton. In January 2017, together with the Casal Quartet, Han Jonkers toured South Africa for the fourth time.

A number of composers, including Ernst Widmer, Alfred Zimmerlin, Martin Derungs, Janos Tamas, Thüring Bräm, Rudlf Kelterborn, Galina Gorelova, Dimitry Lybin, W. Gritskevich, Alexander Litwinovsky, Sandra Goldberg, and Paul Hanmer, have been commissioned by Jonkers to write new works for guitar.

He is editor of a series of guitar music published by the Nepomuk music publishing house in Aarau. His CDs have appeared on the Cadenza Records, Bayer Records, and Pan Classics labels, and have been acclaimed by the press. In March 2006, his CD, Minsk Music, was named CD of the Month by Hessian Radio.

Han Jonkers has initiated various guitar festivals and courses. Since 2009 he has been artistic director of the festival “Boswil Guitar,” which took place in April 2013 for the second time. From 2003 to 2016 Han Jonkers has been president of the Swiss chapter of the European Guitar Teachers Association.

He has published a number of musicological articles in specialist publications, including about Frank Martin in Gitarre & Laute and “The Guitar in Switzerland” in Classical Guitar.

Han Jonkers lives in Basel, and holds a teaching position for guitar at the University Of Applied Sciences Of North West Switzerland.