Jan Willem de Vriend, the "stroke of luck from the Netherlands" (NZZ), has been rooted in historically informed performance practice since he founded the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam in 1982.

The laureate for special creative merit is in demand worldwide as a regular guest, e.g. with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Melbourne and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Residentie Orkest Den Haag as well as the Belgian National Orchestra, the philharmonic orchestras of Bergen, Hong Kong, Rotterdam and Warsaw and the symphony orchestras of the Dutch and Hessian Radio.

Currently principal guest conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lille, he has held the same position on the podium of the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and the Brabant Orchestra.

With the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, De Vriend recorded all of Mendelssohn's symphonies as well as all of Beethoven's symphonies and concertos. He released a complete recording of all Schubert symphonies with the Residentie Orkest.

Together with director Eva Buchmann, de Vriend has staged works by Monteverdi, Haydn, Handel, Telemann and Bach, such as staged versions of the Hunting and Coffee Cantatas at the Leipzig Bach Festival, as well as operas by Mozart, Verdi and Cherubini. De Vriend has also conducted opera productions in Amsterdam (Nederlandse Reisopera), Barcelona, Strasbourg, Lucerne, Schwetzingen and Bergen.

Jan Willem de Vriend is the Principal Conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra staring with the season 2023/24.