Requiem Mass

Jos van Veldhoven studied musicology at the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht and choral and orchestral conducting at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Since 1983 he has been artistic director of The Netherlands Bach Society. In this capacity he gives regular performances of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries both in the Nether-lands and abroad. Since 1989 Jos van Veldhoven has also been the conductor of the soloist ensemble Cappella Figuralis, which concentrates particularly on the music of the 17th century. In addition Van Veldhoven conducts the Utrechts Barok Consort he founded in 1976. Together with all of his ensembles, he has made a large number of recordings for radio, television, and CD both at home and abroad, and has appeared at festivals in the Netherlands and many other countries in Europe. Regularly Jos van Veldhoven is invited as a guest-conductor, for instance with Das Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn, The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Telemann Chamber Orchestra. In January 2000 he made his debut in the United States with the New York Collegium.In June 2001, Van Veldhoven conducted a staged production of Handel's 'Saul' for the Bonn opera. "Conductor Jos van Veldhoven united very good vocal results with impressive orcestral playing of a quality which should once again become the norm in Bonn", in the words of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger when reviewing this performance. Van Veldhoven has been invited to conduct a staged production of Bach's St. John Passion in the autumn of 2002, in Essen. In recent years, Jos van Veldhoven has frequently attracted attention with performances of 'new' repertoire in the early music field. Particular interest has been drawn by performances including oratorios by Telemann and Graun, the Vespers of Gastoldi, Netherlands repertoire from the 'Golden Century', and numerous unknown 17th century dialogue pieces. Jos van Veldhoven also conducted many contemporary premiers of Baroque operas by composers including Mattheson, Keiser, Bononcini, Legrenzi, and Scarlatti. He also has made his own reconstructions of lost compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach such as the St. Mark Passion and the so-called 'Köthener Trauer-Music'. Jos van Veldhoven also has a considerable reputation as a teacher. He is associated with the Amsterdam Conservatory and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague as a professor of choral conducting and ensemble technique. He is also the director of the yearly summer course for choral conductors, the 'Kurt Thomas Course' in Utrecht and he often works with the ensembles of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. Referring to the recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion (1997) the Dutch Music Magazine Luister said: "The most significant aspect about this performance is that Jos van Veldhoven has developed from being a fantastic choral conductor to becoming a Bach-conductor who can hold his own in the company of Herreweghe, Koopman and Leonhardt." Marie-Noëlle de Callataÿ studied singing at the Royal Music Conservatory of Brussels, where she took a degree in opera. She has given numerous recitals and appears as a soloist in oratorio in Europe, the United States, the former Soviet Union, and Japan. She has appeared with conductors including Frieder Bernius, Frans Brüggen, William Christie, Peter Neumann, Ton Koopman, and Marc Minkowski. She performs regularly with the Vlaamse Opera and Theatre de la Monnaie in productions under Florian Heyerick, René Jacobs, Jos van Immerseel, Philippe Herreweghe and others. In addition to the operatic repertoire, Marie-Noëlle de Callata sings in oratorio and chamber music. Marie-Noëlle de Callataÿ appears for the first time with the Netherlands Bach Association. Annette Markert studied singing at the Musikhochschule Felix-Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig. She was then engaged by the opera companies of Halle and Leipzig, where she performed a number of major roles. She was twice awarded the Handel prize by the city of Halle for her interpretations of Handel operas. Markert has worked with prominent conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Peter Schreier, Ton Koopman, Reinhard Göbel, Uwe Gronostay, Michael Schneider, and Roger Norrington, and with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, La Chapelle Royale, Orchestre des Champs Elyseés, the Israel Philharmonic, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Musica Antiqua Köln, and the Wiener Philharmoniker. Annette Markert appears for the first time with the Netherlands Bach Association. Tenor Robert Getchell began singing at the University of Massachusetts, where he studied Spanish and French literature. He studied in France at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, after which he continued his studies with Margreet Honig and Paula de Wit at the Sweelinck Conservatorium of Amsterdam. He participated in master classes with Rudolf Jansen, Ton Koopman, Charlotte Margiono, Udo Reineman and Noëlle Barker. He is regularly in demand as a concert soloist for works such as the Mozart Requiem, Handel's Messiah, and Bach's Passions, with ensembles including the Bachkoor Holland, Bach Collegium Breda, Tragicomedia, under Stephen Stubbs, and Cappella Figuralis and the Netherlands Bach Association under Jos van Veldhoven. He has sung several roles in baroque operas and appeared at various festivals including those of Versailles, Ambronay, Fribourg and Utrecht. Peter Harvey studied singing at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he received many prizes and scholarships for national and international competitions. Harvey has appears with ensembles including the Gabrieli Consort, The Purcell Quartet, The Academy of Ancient Music and Christopher Hogwood, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, La Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale Gent and with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen. He made his debut with Sir John Eliot Gardener in a Purcell program in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. His repertoire includes the major bass roles in Bach's St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passions, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Handel's Messiah. Harvey has participated in many radio, cd and television recordings. Peter Harvey has already appeared in many productions with the Netherlands Bach Association. Since 1983 The Netherlands Bach Society is working with its own Choir and Orchestra. Both are made up of about twenty musicians, all of them specialised in performing 17th and 18th century repertoire. The direction of the choir lies with Jos van Veldhoven, who is also artistic director of The Netherlands Bach Society. About half of the yearly projects are performed under his direction. Additionally, the Choir and Orchestra regularly work with guest conductors including Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman, Paul McCreesh, Jos van Immerseel, Philippe Herreweghe, Hermann Max, René Jacobs, Frans Brüggen, Andrew Parrott, Monica Hugget, Roger Norrington, Iván Fisher and Paul van Nevel. The Choir and Orchestra of The Netherlands Bach Society have frequently appeared at festivals in the Netherlands and abroad. Concert tours have brought the choir to France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Norway and Japan. The Choir and Orchestra have made many recordings for radio- and television-broadcast and for cd-productions.