Tjeerd Top (1978) studied with Qui van Woerdekom and Jaring Walta at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague and with Alexander Kerr at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He won first prize at the prestigious Oskar Back Competition in 2001, winning the ‘Kersjes van de Groenekan Fonds’ prize for his performance of a composition by Carlos Micháns at the same time.

Tjeerd has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Holland Symfonia, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra and Camerata RCO, working with conductors Hans Vonk, Vassily Sinaisky, Peter Oundjian en Michael Lankaster.


Additionally he is active as a chamber musician; he performs regularly with the Vermeer Trio and for a number of years he formed a duo with harpist Lavinia Meijer, with whom he won the Fortis Mees/Pierson Award. He also gave concerts with Leonidos Kavakos, Emanuel Ax, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Thomas Adès and many others.

Tjeerd was appointed associate concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2005, and is in high demand as guest concertmaster with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the WDR Sinfonie Orchester, the Bamberger Symphoniker,  the Swedish Radio, Radio France and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.