When he was 16 year old Siebe Henstra constructed his first harpsichord against the advice of his parents, but Siebe persisted. Anyway it was so much better than the small modern factory instrument that was purchased 2 years before. After school he studied the harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt and Ton Koopman at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. He has won prizes at the competitions in Edinburgh (1982) and Amsterdam (1987).
Since then, he has played with many ensembles; the best known are the Netherlands Bach Society, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, the Leonhardt Consort, Tokyo Baroque, La Petite Bande, the Ricercar Consort and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
He worked as a continuo player with several famous directors - e.g. Frans Brüggen, Gustav Leonhardt and Jos van Veldhoven - with whom he co-operated for the recordings (CD, radio, TV) and opera-productions (for Ricercar, Denon, Philips, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Sony and Telefunken), in most of the European countries, Japan, Russia, Mexico and the United States. Also as a soloist on harpsichord and clavichord he gave numerous performances throughout the world.
He is continuo player (organ and harpsichord) of the Netherlands Bach Society, forms a duo with Lucia Swarts and forms the duo 'Der prallende Doppelschlag' with Menno van Delft on two clavichords, harpsichords or organs.
Siebe Henstra has given a number of master classes in Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France, Japan, the USA, Mexico, Catalunya, and the Czech Republic. He teaches harpsichord since 1988 at the Utrecht conservatory. He is asked regularly as member of the jury for competitions as well as for examinations of several conservatories.
He made several solo CD's. One entirely devoted to 17th century Italian music for harpsichord solo and another one with the complete keyboard works of Matthias Weckmann, both released by Ricercar. A CD with clavichord works for the MIM in Brussels and he contributed to the complete recording of Sweelinck which got an Edison award (2003) as well as an award from the 'Deutsche Schallplatten Kritik Preis (2003).
