Career
He first became known during his student years in Amsterdam in 1999, when he joined Belgian gypsy guitar legend, Fapy Lafertin. Kliphuis toured Europe with Lafertin"s Quintet and featured on three CDs before deciding on a solo career in 2004. He was classically trained at the Amsterdam Conservatoire and started his career as a gypsy jazz violinist in the style of Stéphane Grappelli.
Other influences include saxophonist Stan Getz, guitarist Joe Pass and violinist Jean-Luc Ponty.
In 2006, Kliphuis started combining classical, folk and world music with gypsy jazz and performing regularly outside the jazz world, in classical halls such as the Concertgebouw and folk festivals including Celtic Connections. An internationally touring musician, he has recorded with Angelo Debarre and performed with Martin Taylor, The Rosenberg Trio, Paulus Schäfer, Richard Galliano but also Celtic traditional musicians Frankie Gavin and Charlie McKerron.
All his recent projects feature a mix of genres and are performed at classical, folk and jazz venues worldwide. Kliphuis has hosted string improvisation workshops at festivals and other venues in America, South Africa, Japan, United Kingdom and Europe.
He is the best-known tutor for the violin style of Stéphane Grappelli, having written the best-selling book "Stéphane Grappelli Gypsy Jazz Violin" (Mel Bay, 2008).
Since 2010, he hosts an annual gypsy jazz camp in the Netherlands in August: Grappelli Camp Netherlands and since 2012, he is a professor of Jazz violin at the Conservatoire of Tilburg in the same country. Also in 2012, he released his second book "Grappelli Licks" (Lowland Publications). In 2011, he performed a large number of concerts with a United Kingdom Quartet consisting of Roy Percy (Bass), Nigel Clark (Guitar) and David Newton (Piano).
They performed a concert at Iford Manor on 30 June 2011 which was then manufactured by Birnam Civil Defense and released as a live Digital Video Disc. Since 2012, Kliphuis has been working mostly in the Trio format with Nigel Clark and Roy Percy.
In April 2012, they premiered a crossover project with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra at a sold out Paradiso Amsterdam. In this concert, he explored the common ground of classical string orchestra and string jazz Trio, showcasing some of his own compositions, as well as material by Duke Ellington, Stéphane Grappelli, R. Strauss, A. Copland and others