Contemporary
Philippe Herreweghe
b. 1947 · Ghent · Belgian orchestra and choir conductor
Philippe Herreweghe is a Belgian orchestra and choir conductor, born in Ghent on 2 May 1947. He studied medicine and music in his native city, where he took piano and organ lessons with Marcel Gazelle. In 1969 he founded the choir Collegium Vocale, with which he began his career in early music.
The quality of this ensemble attracted the attention of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt, who invited it to take part in their recordings of Bach's complete sacred cantatas. Shortly afterwards, in France, he formed a group dedicated to French music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which in 1977 gave rise to the Chapelle Royale. With these ensembles he has recorded works by Lully, Rameau, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Bruckner. In 1988 he founded the Ensemble Vocal Européen, dedicated to Renaissance polyphony, and in 1991 the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, a period-instrument orchestra.
Herreweghe also conducts established symphony orchestras, such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the NDR. Since 1982 he has been artistic director of the early music festival in Saintes, in south-western France, and in 1994 he was made an Officier des Arts et des Lettres. His work is especially admired for his Bach recordings and for his performances of the Romantic choral repertoire.
Notable works and achievements
- Recordings of Bach's complete sacred cantatas with Harnoncourt and Leonhardt
- Founding of the Chapelle Royale (1977)
- Founding of the Ensemble Vocal Européen (1988)
- Founding of the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées (1991)
- Artistic directorship of the Saintes festival (since 1982)
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
- Marcel Gazelle (piano)
Anecdotes and curiosities
From medicine to the baton
While studying at the University of Ghent he combined medicine and psychiatry with his musical training. Music won out: in 1970 he founded the Collegium Vocale Gent and abandoned medicine to devote himself fully to conducting orchestras and choirs.
A first piano teacher at home
His very first piano lessons came from his mother, and later at the Ghent Conservatory his teacher was Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist. Two very different influences shaped his musical beginnings.
A record label named phi
In 2010 he set up his own label with Outhere Music, called phi. Its first release was Mahler's Fourth Symphony, and since then it has issued works by Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky and Gesualdo, among others.
Source: Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (ES) · CC BY-SA 4.0