Being the son of saxophone player Bob Rigter, Simon Rigter (The Netherlands, 1973) grew up in a musical environment. At age 10 he started taking classical flute lessons and at age 12 Simon started playing the saxophone.
He studied at the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague from 1989 until 1996, where he was taught by John Ruocco. Subsequently, he studied with Ferdinand Povel at the Hilversum Conservatoire. He graduated in 1997.
As a recording artist Simon can be heard with Dutch Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra, The Reeds, Curtis Fuller, Slide Hampton, John Marshall, Cees Slinger, Victor Kaihatu, Peter Beets, Ruud Breuls, and Erik Doelman. He performed with George Coleman, Joe Cohn, Jim Rotondi, Nancy Marano, Alvin Queen, Ferdinand Povel, Ruud Jacobs, Pim Jacobs, Frans Elsen, Rob van Kreeveld, Peter Beets, and Marco Kegel and toured in China, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, India, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, and South America.
Simon is a teacher at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and plays first tenor in The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw. He also plays with Bop2B, Equinox, The Ruud Breuls/Simon Rigter Quintet, The Simon Rigter Quartet and Tenor Conclave.
Simon wrote a method book with exercises of which the primary goals are ear training, flexibility through the keys, to know where 'everything' is, and to get a feel for how the different scales work together. Moving Motives was released in 2023.