Niels van der Steenhoven graduated at the age of 22 at the Conservatorium in Rotterdam. He was part of the first musicians to graduate in the category "rock". His teachers were for example Leendert Haaksma, Age Kat, Martijn van Agt and Menno Gootjes. He also combined the last two years of his study with Jazz music. His Jazz/Fusion teachers were Ben de Bruin and Claus Flenter.

During his study in '99 he was awarded 2nd best guitarist of the Netherlands by a professional jury. This Jury existed Noel Redding (ex-bassplayer Jimi Hendrix), Adrian van den Berg (Whitesnake), Harry Sacksoni and Leonardo Amuedo. He also got a scholarship at the "Supplies for excelling young musicians". To get this, he had to play for a commission of 2 people, called Eef Alberts and Maarten van der Grinten. With this Scholarship he could study at the GIT in Hollywood, with Scott Henderson as teacher. Unfortunately, the whole trip could not go on, because it was too expensive. After contacting several funds for an extra contribution, Niels gave up to continue searching.

After playing in different bands Niels met vocalist Edsilia Rombley and he became the guitarist of her band. He was on TV with "Barend & van Dorp" (a Dutch talk show) with this band, for example. Because of her, he came in contact with Tjeerd Oosterhuis, a famous Dutch producer, and he gave him several studio-assignments. And through Tjeerd he met his sister Trijntje Oosterhuis. He played with her on a regular basis.

From then on Niels has played with a lot of famous Dutch artists, like Jim from Idols at the Pepsi Charts in Ahoy Rotterdam, Zosja from Idols, Bastiaan Ragas, Birgit Schuurman and Sita. Later on, he got the chance to do an audition for the band Fontane with famous Dutch singer/songwriter and actor Michiel Huisman. He liked the way Niels played and wanted him in his band. The name of the band has changed to “Michiel Huisman" and they came up with an album in September 2005.

After making the album with Michiel Huisman and doing a lot of live shows with him they decided to stop in the spring of 2006. The record company (Universal) would not invest any more money in promoting the album so Michiel thought it didn’t make any sense to go on with the band.

Then it was April 2006 and Niels received a phone call from Bobby Jacobs (bass player of Focus) with the question if he was interested in doing an audition for Focus. They were looking for a new guitar player and Bobby thought Niels might fit in. After doing the audition on the 1st of May 2006 he didn’t hear anything for a while. Then suddenly he got a call from the manager. If Niels is interested in doing 2 shows with the band, just to see if it works. So he did two shows with Focus. One show in Norway (Lillehammer Classic Rock festival) with bands like 10CC and Procul Harem and a festival in The Hague called ‘Kaderock’. A few days after the Kaderock show the phone rang and it was Thijs van Leer telling Niels he was hired.

From that moment everything happened so fast. Recording a new album with Focus and writing a (title) song for it, doing shows in countries like: Mexico, UK, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Tsjech and receiving raving reviews from press and fans.

After a while working almost exclusively for Focus Niels wanted to pick up his work as a sideman for the Dutch artists. In the spring of and summer of 2007 he did a few gigs with Trijntje Oosterhuis and dutch rock band ‘VanVelzen’. Also the urge of writing his own songs became more and more vivid. In the summer of 2007 between touring with Focus and doing gigs in Holland Niels wrote about 15 instrumental songs, got a band together en started to rehearse in the end of 2007. The first shows with his own ‘Niels van der Steenhoven band’ are going to be scheduled for February 2008. His songs are basically a mix of Jazz and Rock. His influences at the moment are: Michael Landau, John Scofield, Robben Ford and John Mayer, but he also pays attention to players like Wes Montgomery, Charlie Parker, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul and Miles Davis.

In January of 2008 we are going to record a demo. Sound samples are going to be on my website (nielsvdsteenhoven.com) and on my MySpace page. An album is coming up.