Born in Zeist, the Netherlands, cellist Martha Bijlsma enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, chamber musician, artistic director, and educator.

As a member of the Flex Ensemble (piano quartet), she has been awarded numerous prizes. With the ensemble, she has performed in renowned venues such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Beijing Performing Arts Center, and Le Vivier Montréal, as well as at leading international festivals including Marvão International Music Festival, Daegu Contemporary Music Festival, and Heidelberger Frühling.

Her third CD, »Inside Eroica«, was released in 2020 on the Avi label in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

In 2016, she co-founded the innovative concert series »imPULS«, through which she presents interdisciplinary projects and artistic collaborations – among them with Post Theater (Berlin), farout artistic research (Pamplona), and Third Rail Projects (New York).

Together with the Flex Ensemble, she developed the reFLEX mobile concert stage in 2022 – an initiative designed to bring acoustically refined live performances to outdoor spaces without the need for amplification. From 2014 to 2021, she also served – alongside the Flex Ensemble – as artistic director of the Rheinhessen Chamber Music Festival, shaping its identity with innovative programming and a forward-looking artistic vision.

Her chamber music partners include the Kuss Quartet and Albrecht Mayer. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, she maintains close collaborations with living composers. Recent projects include premieres by Gordon Williamson, Brigitta Muntendorf, Gérard Pesson, and Michael Edwards.

Martha Bijlsma studied cello at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover (HMTMH) with Leonid Gorokhov, and chamber music with Oliver Wille and Markus Becker. From 2014 to 2024 she taught cello at the Hamburg Conservatory, and since 2021 she has been Lecturer in Chamber Music at the HMTMH. As part of the Dorothea Erxleben Fellowship, she directed the university’s chamber music festival in 2022 and 2024.

In 2026, she will be a Fellow of Beethovenfest Bonn.