The soprano Nienke Oostenrijk graduated from Groningen University with a degree in history, before studying vocal arts at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatorium. She took her degree with Margreet Honig and Cora Canne Meijer, and attended master-classes of, among others, Arleen Auger, Elly Ameling and Robert Holl.
Her opera repertoire includes the rôles of Konstanze, Pamina, Sophie in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Tebaldo in Verdi’s Don Carlos. Her engagements as a concert singer are numerous, and include Bach’s St Matthew Passion in the Berliner Konzerthaus, as well as with the Residentie Orchestra conducted by Jaap van Zweden, Mozart’s Requiem, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Rameau’s Castor and Pollux. She has also covered work by later composers such as Schoenberg. She has a varied repertoire of recordings and in November 2005 performed at a concert dedicated to the Silver Jubilee of Queen Beatrix in the presence of Queen Beatrix and other members of the Dutch Royal family.