Philippe Herreweghe was born in Ghent and studied at both the university and music conservatory in his hometown. During his student years, in 1970, he founded and began conducting Collegium Vocale Gent.

 

 

Philippe Herreweghe’s energetic, authentic and rhetorical approach to Baroque music soon drew praise. In 1977 he founded La Chapelle Royale in Paris, with whom he performed French music of the 17th century.

 

He also founded several other ensembles, making historically appropriate interpretations of repertoire stretching from the Renaissance to the present day, including Ensemble Vocal Européen, specializing in Renaissance polyphony, and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, founded in 1991 with the aim of playing pre-Romantic and Romantic repertoire on original instruments.

 

 

Collegium Vocale Gent was founded in 1970 on Philippe Herreweghe’s initiative by a group of friends studying at the University of Ghent,. They were one of the first ensembles to use new ideas about baroque performance practice in vocal music.

Their authentic, text-oriented and rhetorical approach gave the ensemble the transparent sound with which it would acquire world fame and perform at the major concert venues and music festivals of Europe, the United States, Russia, South America, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. Since 2017 the ensemble runs its own summer festival Collegium Vocale Crete Senesi in Tuscany, Italy.

Soprano I: Dorothee Mields
Soprano II: Barbora Kabátková
Alto I: Benedict Hymas
Alto II: William Knight
Tenor I: Reinoud Van Mechelen
Tenor II: Guy Cutting
Bass I: Peter Kooij
Bass II: Wolf Matthias Friedrich

 

Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine 100’