A pupil of Anthony Woodrow, he graduated Cum Laude at the “Sweelinck-Conservatory” of Amsterdam in 1977, continuing his studies with cellist Anner Bijlsma, obtaining a “Prix d’ Excellence“ in 1979. In the same year he was selected from a hundred candidates from all musical disciplines for a scholarship for the Netherlands Music Prize. He combined a part time position as solo bass with furtherstudies with Gary Karr in Hart College of Music Hartford (Connecticut). This prestigious music prize, the highest distinction to be given to a musician in the Netherlands, was presented to him in 1981 by the Minister of Culture.
He became a pioneer of the bass with the aim to free the bass from its confinement to the orchestra, using the same approach as would be applied to any other string instrument. From 1985 to 2004 he shared the solo bass position in the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra with Rudolf Senn. He has been professor at the Rotterdam Conservatory since 1984 and the ArtEZ Messiaen Academy since 1994. Many of his pupils are leading players in major orchestras including the Concertgebouw Orchestra, some work as professors in Germany, several colleagues frequented his private lessons.
As a soloist he has performed in major concert halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Radio Symphony, the Netherlands Philharmonic, the C.P.E. Bach Chamber Orchestra in Berlin and the Belgian and Swedish Chamber Orchestra. He has toured the USA extensively including performances in New York (Carnegie Hall), the”Myra Hess Series“ in Chicago, Washington (DC), San Francisco, Houston & Austin (Texas), Lincoln (Nebraska), Richmond (Virginia) Lafayette, Olympia (Washington) and Fairbanks (Alaska). In South America he played in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Brasilia. He performed chamber music with musicians like Yehudi and Hepzibah Menuhin, Tibor Varga,,Menahem Pressler, Yuri Bashmet, Vadim Repin, Maria Jõao Peres, Augustin Dumay, Colin Carr, Mûza Rubackyté, the Borodin, Prazak , Skampa-, Fine Arts- Prakanyi-, Leipzig- St.Petersburg- and Vilnius Quartet.
He has participated in festivals and workshops in Switzerland, Spain, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Ireland, Canada the USA and Brazil. In the summer series of the Concertgebouw he performed Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Lithuania and a ‘cross over’ program including Antheils Jazz Symfony, his own transcription of Piazolla’s Grand Tango, Gershwin songs and the Rhapsody in Blue to a sold out house in the Concertgebouw.
In 2001 he premiered in the Concertgebouw small hall, his transcription of two romantic master pieces: Chopin sonata opus 65 and Rachmaninov sonata opus 19 with pianist Muza Rubackyte, first prize winner of the Liszt Competition in Budapest. The works were recorded for Brilliant Classics in 2004, In the same year he played Bottesini’s Concerto F# minor concerto with the Neubrandenburg Philharmony. In 2006 he played Schubert’s String Quintet opus 164 (2d. cello part) and the piano quintet “the Trout’ and the quintet of Dvorak with Muza Rubackyte and the Vilnius String Quintet in the Concertgebouw in 2007/8 he combined Mozart’s Serenade K.V. 525 with Schuberts Quintet using a five string violone.
He has been advisor and participant and jury member in international bass courses and competitions. Since 1987 he became the artistic director of the Tindal Foundation, organising chamber music concerts with leading musicians from the Netherlands and abroad. The Tindal Concert series, highly acclaimed by the press as well as the Council of the Arts, include chamber evenings, concerts in open air, musical theatre, small opera performances and a yearly Concert Spirituel in Lent.
Hans Roelofsen plays a bass made for him in 1981 by master violinmaker Jaap Bolink. Since 1991 he played a copy of a 6 string Maggini violone (1600) and finally in 2007 the National Music Foundation commissioned the reconstruction of a 17 century violone to be made by master Bolink after three years of intensive research including study of extant originals. In 2008 he was selected (20 out of 200) to give a solo performance on the violone in Amsterdam and Paris. He enlarged the repertory with well over a hundred titles for bass and piano, violone/ bass duo, violone and cembalo.