Ernst Reijseger (Naarden, 13 November 1954) is a renowned cellist. He attended the Amsterdam Conservatory and engaged himself in the world of improvised music, developing a truly physical style of playing and a broad vocabulary of unorthodox techniques. Reijseger develops his music through experimenting permanently-imitating sounds and interacting with the audience are important starting points for him.
In the late 1970’s he performed with bands from the Amsterdam improvisation scene, among others, the ICP Orchestra and the Theo Loevendie Consort. Together with violist Maurice Horsthuis and double bassist Ernst Glerum he formed the successful Amsterdam String Trio, which balances between jazz, classical and contemporary music. In 1985 he was awarded the Boy Edgar Prijs (the major Dutch jazz award). In 1995 he received the Bird Award at the North Sea Jazz Festival.
Reijseger gained international success as a solo artist and as a member of the Clusone Trio, the Arcado String Trio and the Gerry Hemingway Quintet. He composed and performed soundtracks for a number of films by director Werner Herzog. In 2010 his solo album ‘Tell Me Everything’ was awarded an Edison and in the same year he was awarded a Gouden Kalf for the soundtrack he composed for ‘C'est Déjà l'Été’, Martijn Maria Smits’s feature film debut.