CV Vivian de Graaff

Last year Vivian completed her Bachelor of Psychology at the Leiden University and her Bachelor Classical Violin at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. During her psychology studies, she learned a lot about doing research and she explored her interest in this with electives about good research practices. Also, she was a member of the Honours College and was selected for the Honours Lectures, in which an exclusive group of students had lessons from profound researchers and could visit their labs.

During her studies at the Royal Conservatory she discovered Orchestra Morgenstond and their performance format. She participated for four years and since two years she is also part of the productive team. As a musician of Orchestra Morgenstond, she performed a lot in front of unknown audiences and developed unique skills necessary to reach new listeners. Among those skills are playing all music by heart so that complete focus can be dedicated to connecting with the audience, acting and telling stories in between the pieces, and being able to switch effortlessly between those two activities. Next to Orchestra Morgenstond, she also played in the Youth Orchestra of The Netherlands, the Britten Youth String Orchestra, and the Ricciotti ensemble. This latter orchestra is also concerned reaching new audiences in innovative ways, by playing in easy accessible places, for example in shops, asylum centers, nursing homes, etc. In sum, Vivian is exploring ways to involve unknown listeners in approachable forms with classical music.