van Zweden, Jaap [key], 1960–, Dutch conductor and violonist, b. Amsterdam. An accomplished violonist, he was appointed concertmaster of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1979. He began studying conducting with the encouragement of Leonard Bernstein in the 1980s, resigned as concertmaster in 1995, and became a full-time conductor two years later. He was chief conductor of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra Orchestra, Enschede (1997–2003), the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague (2000–2005), the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Hilversum (2005–13), and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Antwerp (2008–11), earning a reputation as a dynamic, knowledgeable, and exacting maestro. Van Zweden, who has guest-conducted many leading orchestras and made his American debut with the St. Louis Symphony in 1996, has been the music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2008 and of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012. In 2018 he became music director of the New York Philharmonic.
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