Born in Amsterdam, his musical activities cover a wide field: conductor, composer and pianist. He conducts leading orchestras in Holland and the rest of Europe, as well as in the USA, Japan and Australia. He has conducted many productions at the Netherlands Opera – most recently Andriessen’s Theatre of the World, which was performed in both Los Angeles and Amsterdam in 2016.

His recordings as a pianist have won many prizes, including the Dutch Edison, the Premio della critica discografica Italiana, the Grand Prix of the Hungarian Liszt Society, and the Diapason d’Or, as well as the Edison Oeuvre Prize in 2008. June 2017 saw the launch of the CD box with the complete music for ensemble and choir by György Kurtág, recorded with the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble.

Reinbert de Leeuw has received several prestigious awards and was appointed Honorary Doctor of the Utrecht University and Professor at the Leiden University. He received an Honorary Doctorate of the University of Leuven (Belgium) in 2016 to honour his indefatigable effort to involve a wider audience in music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In 2008, he was made a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

Among his acclaimed arrangements and compositions are Im wunderschönen Monat Mai, a cycle based on songs by Schubert and Schumann, and his work for large orchestra, The Nightly Wanderer, which premiered in Amsterdam. The USA premiere took place in April 2017 with the New World Symphony in Miami.