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The Dutch conductor, Jos van Veldhoven, received his training at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Utrecht. He also studied choral and orchestra conducting at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
While still studying at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Jos van Veldhoven saw the musical world around him changing at a rapid pace. Profound questions were being asked about the established performance practices of choirs and orchestras, and many ensembles for early and contemporary music were being founded. Training programs for early music were still virtually non-existent, but new heroes such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman, Sigiswald Kuijken, and Philippe Herreweghe were beginning to define the musical landscape. With all these people literally around him, Jos van Veldhoven also opted for a far-reaching specialization.
In 1976, Jos van Veldhoven founded his own Early Music ensemble: the Utrecht Barok Consort. It was a group of friends who wanted to delve into the performance practice of music from the 17th and 18th centuries and who were full of ambition: fanatical, curious, willing to experiment, and in search of new and unknown repertoire. For years, for example, the ensemble performed a Baroque opera in concert form twice a year, giving it a new, this time contemporary, première.
In 1983, a major breakthrough came when Jos van Veldhoven was asked to become Artistic Director of the prestigious Netherlands Bach Society. Until then, the society had been a group that performed mainly the music of J.S. Bach with an amateur choir and various modern orchestras. In the years that followed, he developed the ensemble into a world-class choir and a specialized orchestra playing on period instruments. The repertoire was expanded from the 16th to the early 19th century.
Since the launch of in 2014, the Netherlands Bach Society has also gained an important worldwide place on the Digital stage. Jos van Veldhoven was initiator of the global internet project All of Bach, with the the aim of recording all of J.S. Bach’s works, performed at special locations with great attention to image and sound, and sharing them online free of charge. More than 500,000 people now have subscriptions and more than 140.000,000 fans have watched and listened to the hundreds of recordings of J.S. Bach.
Jos van Veldhoven has been conductor and programmer of more than 250 productions including the annual performance of J.S. Bach's Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 in Naarden (The Netherlands). Each year, more than 12,000 people attend the traditional performance of J.S. Bach’s Passion in this small fortified town. Many of the concerts of the Netherlands Bach Society were recorded for radio and/or television. Jos van Veldhoven was always attentive to the works of J.S. Bach, including reconstructions of his lost Markus-Passion BWV 247 and Köthener Trauermusik. Many concerts featured Dutch music from the 17th and 18th centuries, including contemporary premieres with music by Buns, Hacquart, Geertsom, Padbrué and Verrijt. Much attention was also given to 17th century repertoire from Germany, France, England, Spain and Italy including many first performances of dialogues by Charpentier, Carissimi, Pfleger, Grossi, Cozzolani, and Della Ciaia, among others. Since 1989 he is also conductor of Cappella Figuralis, an ensemble of soloists of The Netherlands Bach Society that specializes in 17th century music. In recent times he attracted attention with performances of 'new' repertoire in ancient music.
Concert tours have taken him to Belgium, England, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Japan, and the USA. He has participated in a large number of national and international festivals including: Festival of Early Music Utrecht, Festival of Flanders, International Organ Festival Haarlem, Festival d’Art Sacré, International Choir Festival, Bath International Music Festival, Dollart Festival, Internasjonale Kirkefestspill, Nordic Baroque Music Festival, Festival des Cathédrales de Picardie.
In 2018, after more than 35 years, Jos van Veldhoven stepped down as Artistic Director of the Netherlands Bach Society. Since then, he has been a much sought-after guest conductor with choirs and orchestras worldwide. He also gives lectures and masterclasses on the performance practice of music from the 17th and 18th centuries, and that of J.S. Bach in particular. His repertoire has continued to expand. Recently, he has performed W.A. Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor, Haydn’s Schöpfung, Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Johannes Brahms’s German Requiem. The program for the coming years includes Dvorák’s Stabat Mater and Francis Poulenc’s Gloria.
Jos van Veldhoven teaches choral direction at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam and at the Royal Conservatory in Hague. |
