Biography

The versatile violinist Runa ’t Hart (1992) impresses with her solistic qualities and as advocate of chamber music. Her musical interests are broad, covering domains from baroque to contemporary music.

In December 2016 she received the prestigious violin scholarship from the Kersjes Fonds in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. This is a notable scholarship that is awarded each year to a young violin talent. In their jury report, the Kersjes Fonds stipulates Runa’s “glowing, intense playing with a personal story” and calls her “a (growing) diamond that glows from the inside and shines with musicality.”

Runa started playing the violin when she was two years old. At the age of ten she started lessons with the well-known violin teacher Coosje Wijzenbeek and a year later Runa was accepted at the School for Young Talent at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague.

For many years Runa played in the Fancy Fiddlers, a string ensemble led by Coosje Wijzenbeek. In her last few years in the ensemble Runa was lead violin. As member of the Fancy Fiddlers Runa had the opportunity to work together with well-known musicians, such as Janine Jansen and Menahem Pressler and got the chance to play in famous concert halls such as the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

In 2011 Runa started her studies at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, studying with Vera Beths and Shunske Sato. She was also influenced by participating in master classes with, amongst others, Philippe Graffin, Stephan Picard, Ulf Wallin, Clive Brown and Anner Bijlsma. She finished her master degree at the Conservatory of Amsterdam in 2018 with the highest distinction.

Since then she’s been playing concerts both in the Netherlands and abroad. Runa has a great passion for chamber music, she is the violinist of the Marigold Piano Quartet. In 2021 they won the first prize of the Virtuoso & Belcanto competition in Lucca, Italy. After that they have been performing all over the Netherlands in halls like the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht as well as being broadcasted on live radio multiple times.

Runa plays on a violin from the eighteenth-century Italian builder Landolfi with a bow from the nineteenth-century French builder Maline.