Ellen Tackenkamp

Ellen Tackenkamp was born in Neede, Gelderland in december ’85. She started playing recorder at age 6, moved to klarinet when she was 8 and took on saxophone a bit later. With this instrument she started playing in the bigband of the local music school, which was her first encounter with jazz music. During secondary school she started to sing in different bands and productions, and it was then she decided that this would be the ‘instrument’ for her. She joined another bigband as a vocalist and fell in love with jazz definitely. After highschool she left for Dublin, Ireland to study at the Blackrock Music Centre. She took lessons with Dorothy Murphy, who became a great inspiration. After the Irish adventure she went for auditions at the Conservatory of Amsterdam where she is studying now.