Cappella Amsterdam is a professional chamber choir that was founded in 1970 by Jan Boeke. Over the past years the ensemble, under the direction of Daniel Reuss, has occupied a prominent position in the fields of both early music and the modern and contemporary repertoires. The group aims to involve a wide audience in choral music, in particular works by old and new composers from Holland. To this end Cappella Amsterdam has realised numerous projects with works by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and Orlando di Lasso as well as modern compositions, often written for the choir, by Ton de Leeuw, Hans Koolmees, Robert Heppener, Peter Schat and Klaas de Vries. Jan van Vlijmen composed by order of Cappella Amsterdam Choeurs (1999), four choirs of his new opera Thyeste, which is performed for the first time on September 27, 2005 at La Monnaie in Brussels.
Cappella Amsterdam often participates in different opera-productions: Tan Dun's Marco Polo, Guus Jansen's and Friso Haverkamp's Hierº , Rameau's Les Indes Galantes (co-operation with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and Frans Brüggen) and Jan van de Putte's Wet Snow in the Holland Festival 2004. With Dance Group Krisztina de Châtel the choir realised in the spring of 2003 a series performances of Obscura, a choreography for dancers and singers to new music of Hans Koolmees, among other works.
Cappella Amsterdam is frequently invited to participate in productions programmed by renowned Dutch Festivals as the Holland Festival, the Holland Festival Early Music Utrecht and the Festival Musica Sacra in Maastricht. On the invitation of the festivals Settembre Musica, La Folle Journée, Ars Musica and Berliner Festspiele, Cappella Amsterdam has performed in Turin, Nantes, Lisbon, Tokyo, Brussels and Berlin.
Collaborations with major orchestras, instrumental ensembles and choirs have included among the others the ASKO/Schönberg Ensemble, Ebony Band, Nieuw Ensemble, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestra of the 18th Century, SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart and RIAS-Kammerchor. |