André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu (born 1 October 1949 in Maastricht) is a Dutch conductor and violinist, known in the press as the "King of Waltz" after Johann Strauss.
He studied in Liege, then in Maastricht, and graduated from the Brussels Conservatoire in 1977. Rieu's teachers included André Gertler and Herman Krebbers. He played second violin in the Limburg Symphony Orchestra under his father.
After founding the Maastricht Solo Orchestra, which initially consisted of just a few musicians, Rieu played with them at his Dutch grandparents' home, performing the Viennese Waltz. In 1987, Rieu founded the Johann Strauss Orchestra, initially consisting of 12 players. In 1992, the orchestra recorded its first disc, Merry Christmas. In 1994, the recording of the second waltz from Dimitri Shostakovich's Suite for Orchestra made Rieu and his new ensemble famous throughout the Netherlands, and the second album Strauß & Co. stayed on the national charts for about a year.
Rieu went on to tour the world extensively with his orchestra, releasing up to seven studio and concert albums a year and increasing the orchestra's membership to between 50 and 55 musicians. By 2008, some 27 million of his albums had been sold.