Ton Koopman & Mario Brunello

Born in Zwolle (The Netherlands) Ton Koopman had a classical education and studied organ, harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam. He received the Prix d‘Excellence for both instruments. Naturally attracted by historical instruments and fascinated by the philological performance style, Koopman concentrated his studies on Baroque music, with particular attention to J. S. Bach and D. Buxtehude, and soon became a leading figure in the “historic informed performance” movement.

As organist and harpsichordist Ton Koopman has appeared in the most prestigious concert halls of the world and played the most beautiful historical instruments of Europe. At the age of 25, he created his first baroque orchestra; in 1979 he founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra followed in 1992 by the Amsterdam Baroque Choir. Combined as the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, the ensemble soon gained worldwide fame as one of the best ensembles on period instruments. With a repertoire ranging from the early Baroque to the late Classics, they have performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Théatre des Champs-Elysées and Salle Pleyel in Paris, Barbican and Royal Albert Hall in London, Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Philharmonie in Berlin, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, Suntory Hall in Tokyo as well as in Brussels, Milan, Madrid, Rome, Salzburg, Utrecht, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Munich, Athens, etc.

Among Ton Koopman’s most ambitious projects has been the recording of the complete Bach cantatas, a massive undertaking for which he has been awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis “Echo Klassik”, the BBC Award, the Hector Berlioz Prize and has been nominated for the Grammy Award (USA) and the Gramophone Award (UK). In addition to the works of Bach, Koopman has long been an advocate of the music of Bach’s predecessor Dieterich Buxtehude and following the completion of the Bach project, he embarked in 2005 on the recording of the Buxtehude-Opera Omnia. The edition consists of 30 CDs, the last having been released in 2014.

Ton Koopman is President of the International Dieterich Buxtehude Society. In 2006 he was awarded the Bach-Medal of the City of Leipzig, in 2012 the Buxtehude Prize of the city of Lübeck, and in 2014 he received the Bach Prize of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
In 2016 he received an honorary professorship with the Musikhochschule in Lübeck and in Linz, and in November 2017 he was awarded with the prestigious Edison Classical Award. Since 2019 he is President of the Leipzig Bach Archive.

In recent years, Ton Koopman has been very active as guest conductor working with the most prestigious orchestras as Berlin Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Vienna Symphony, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Cleveland Orchestras, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Lyon and NHK in Tokyo.

Ton Koopman has recorded a very large number of records for Erato, Teldec, Sony, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips. In 2003 he founded his own label “Antoine Marchand”, a sub label of Challenge Classics. Ton Koopman publishes regularly. He has edited the complete Händel Organ Concertos for Breitkopf & Härtel and recently published new editions of Händel’s Messiah and Buxtehude‘s Das Jüngste Gericht for Carus Verlag.

Ton Koopman is emeritus Professor at the University of Leiden, Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London and artistic director of the Festival “Itinéraire Baroque”.

Mario Brunello is a musician gifted with an uncommon expressive freedom. In 1986 he won the Tchaikovsky Prize in Moscow, the very first Italian to have received this recognition. Over the years he has worked with the greatest conductors such as Abbado, Gergiev, Ozawa, Pappano and Koopman, combining his appearances as a soloist with intense activity as a chamber musician.

Eclectic and innovative, in recent years he has promoted the rediscovery of the violoncello piccolo – an instrument no longer in current use, but popular among composers of the 17th and 18th centuries – which bore fruit in the “Brunello Bach Series”, a project consisting 41 of three recordings in which important masterworks for violin acquired a new dimension on the violoncello piccolo with four strings.

After the release of the Sonatas and Partitas (2019) and the Sei Suonate à cembalo certato è violoncello piccolo solo (2021), the trilogy will conclude in 2022 with “Bach Transcriptions”, an ingenious programme of concertos recorded with the Accademia dell’Annunciata.

In the meantime, the collaboration between Brunello and Arcana gave birth to two remarkable albums with the same instrument: a CD dedicated to Tartini (Diapason d’Or) and “Sonar in Ottava” in collaboration with Giuliano Carmignola (which BBC Music Magazine rated as among the “Best Concerto Recordings” of 2020).