Anna van der Zee grew up in Paeroa and studied violin in Wellington and Detmold, Germany. After 5 years of work and study in Germany, Anna returned to New Zealand and co-founded the Tasman String Quartet. With her quartet, she travelled to Boulder, Colorado to study full-time with the Takacs Quartet for 2 years. Along the way the quartet picked up prizes in chamber music competitions in Florida, Missouri and Melbourne, performed in tours for Chamber Music New Zealand, and took part in festivals and masterclasses from Banff to Hamburg. In her travels Anna has worked with musicians such as Eberhard Feltz, Sylvia Rosenberg, Andras Schiff, Donald Weilerstein, Miriam Fried, Nobuko Imai, and members of the New Zealand, Pacifica, Guarneri, St. Lawrence, Emerson, Michelangelo, Juilliard, Schoenberg, and Cleveland String Quartets.
Before joining the NZSO Anna played with the North German Radio Orchestra and the Århus Symphony Orchestra in Denmark. As a student in Wellington, Anna was concertmaster of the Wellington Youth Orchestra and Principal Second Violin of the NZSO National Youth Orchestra. She has been awarded several prizes and scholarships, including a DAAD scholarship from the German Government and performed concertos by Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Sibelius, Bach and Mozart.
Alongside her work with the NZSO and in partnership with her husband, violist Christiaan van der Zee, Anna runs Karori Classics, a series of monthly chamber music concerts for the benefit of charities within the local community.
Martin & Kay Pipe