Meet violinist - Hawijch Elders

Dutch violinist Hawijch Elders (1998) is regarded as one of the great musical talents of her generation. 

In June 2025, she won First Prize at the Premio Internazionale Antonio Mormone, one of the most prestigious international violin competitions currently. The final took place in Milan, with performances including at the iconic Teatro alla Scala, where she performed Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 under the direction of Massimo Zanetti. 

Since September 2022, Hawijch has been an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo, where she studies with Augustin Dumay. She is regularly heard on NPO Klassiek and appeared on the well-known television program Podium Klassiek. As a chamber musician, she has performed with artists including Sol Gabetta, Valeriy Sokolov, Bertrand Chamayou, and Frank Braley. 

In the 2025/2026 season, she will make her debut with Phion, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the FORM Orchestra, and will perform a solo recital at the Waalse Kerk in Amsterdam. In 2023, she made her debut at BOZAR in Brussels with a performance of Mozart’s Fourth Violin Concerto alongside the Wiener KammerOrchester under the baton of Augustin Dumay. As a soloist, she has also performed with the Nürnberger Symphoniker, Hofer Symphoniker, Belgian National Orchestra, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Orquestra Clássica da Madeira, and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. 

In May 2023, she won First Prize at the 8th International Henri Marteau Violin Competition, including three special prizes for her performances of works by Bach, Reger, and Marteau. In October of the same year, she was a laureate at the prestigious Premio Paganini Competition in Genoa. In 2021, Hawijch won First Prize at the Leonid Kogan International Competition for Young Violinists, as well as Second Prize and special prizes at the Odessa International Violin Competition. She was a laureate of Dutch Classical Talent in the 2021/2022 season. Earlier, she won prizes at the 37th Premio Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition and the Dutch National Violin Competition ‘Oskar Back’ (both in 2018). In December 2019, she was awarded the prestigious Kersjes Violin Scholarship by the Kersjes Foundation at the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam. 

Since 2016, Hawijch has studied with Ilya Grubert at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees with highest honors. Prior to that, she studied with Benzion Shamir. 

Hawijch plays a violin made by Gennaro Gagliano (Naples, ca. 1755) and a bow made by Dominique Pecatte (Paris, 19th century), both on loan from the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation. The violin is part of the ‘Willem G. Vogelaar collection’ and the bow belongs to the ‘Tettelaar collection.’