Jaap Schröder first came to Iceland in 1993. He directed and performed as soloist with The Skálholt Bach Consort as well as giving a lecture on playing baroque music on period instruments. Every year since then he has been participating in the Skálholt Summer Concerts Festival. Jaap Schröder is also the founder of The Skálholt Quartet.
Jaap Schröder is an expert in the violin repetoire of the 17th , 18th and 19th Century and one of the pioneers in performing music from this period in an authentic way. He was the leader of Quartetto Esterhazy and Smithsonian String Quartet. Both these ensembles performed and recorded an extensive part of the Classical quartet repertoire for the first time on period instruments. He has been a teacher in Basel in Switzerland, and at Yale University and Smithsonian Institute in the US, where he is honorary professor. Jaap Schröder has made countless recordings of early music, both in Europe and America for many record labels. Here in Iceland he has been soloist and leader on 9 CD recordings for “Smekkleysa” label, six of them have already been released. In 2006, at the 950th anniversary of Skálholt bishopric, he donated a big part of his music library to Skálholt.
In the year 2001 Jaap Schröder recived the Icelandic Falcon badge of honour from the President of Iceland.