Herreweghe & Concertgebouworkest: Haydn's The Creation

Philippe Herreweghe is a Belgian conductor. He is principally known as a conductor of Johann Sebastian Bach, the German composer who wrote over one thousand works. He is regarded by leading Bach scholars today as a founding father of the baroque authentic practice, original instrument movement and one of record label Harmonia Mundi's most prolific recording artists, with over sixty albums to his name. His early training as a chorister and assistant choirmaster in a Jesuit school was complemented by piano studies at the Ghent Conservatory. At university Herreweghe studied psychiatry and formed a 12‐person choir devoted to the revolutionary performing practices of Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman and the Kuijken brothers.

The 'Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra' is a symphony orchestra of international renown, whose character has been shaped by several generations of musicians, longstanding collaboration with each of the six chief conductors, and the unique acoustic properties of the Concertgebouw’s main hall.

The Orchestra has gained its unique international position with its ‘velvet’ strings, ‘golden’ brass and the exceptional and personal timbre of the woodwinds. The musicians are the guardians of the playing culture that gives the Orchestra its unique sound and flexibility. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra consists of 120 virtuosos who perform together at the highest level.

During the fifty years of Willem Mengelberg’s reign, a wide variety of composers such as Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra several times. Celebrities such as Béla Bartók, Sergey Rachmaninoff and Sergey Prokofiev performed their own works as soloists. This crucial bond with contemporary composers was continued with Bruno Maderna, Peter Schat, Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, Luigi Nono and John Adams, and is still RCO policy.

Collegium Vocale Gent was founded in 1970 on the initiative of Philippe Herreweghe.

It was one of the first ensembles to use the then‐new ideas about baroque practice in vocal music performances. Musicians such as Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman and Nikolaus Harnoncourt immediately took an interest in the Flemish ensemble’s fresh, new approach, which led to intensive collaboration.

In the mid‐1980s the ensemble acquired international fame and was invited to all the major concert halls and music festivals of Europe, Israel, the United States, Russian, South America, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia.