Griet De Geyter & Il Gardellino
Biography Griet De Geyter & Il Gardellino
Griet De Geyter
lost her heart to vocal baroque music. Some of her most treasured projects include a video recording of Bach's Matthew Passion with the Netherlands Bach Society for www.allofbach.com, the opera production Dido & Acis with The Ministry of Operatic Affairs and projects with il Gardellino, Collegium Vocale Gent, the Netherlands Bach Society, Collegium Marianum, Le Poème Harmonique, and BachPlus. She has worked with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Paul Dombrecht, Bart Van Reyn, Richard Egarr, Bart Naessens, Václav Luks, and Jos van Veldhoven.
As a soloist, Griet feels at home in all the great works of the oratorio and orchestral repertoire: passions and cantatas by Bach, masses by Mozart, symphonies by Mahler, Handel's Messiah, Solveig in Grieg's Peer Gynt, and the major works of Mendelssohn, Pergolesi, Boccherini, Vivaldi, and Fauré.
With the trio M E L E A S, consisting of her brother, clarinetist Rik De Geyter, pianist Nicolas Callot, and herself, Griet made a video recording of Mahler's Das Himmlische Leben in 2017. As their next project the trio is currently preparing a Schubertiade, performed on historical instruments. Griet's collaboration with the keyboard duo Zeitspiel (Nicolas Callot & Bart Rodyns) resulted in a live recording of Clara's heart, a concert programme around Clara Schumann, which was released digitally by Warner Classics / Klara at the end of 2019.
Griet De Geyter has a large discography with many different ensembles. Her solo CD Stille Klagen with German baroque music, for which she collaborated once again with the baroque orchestra il Gardellino, was released in September 2020 on the Passacaille label. In 2021, a new CD with M E L E A S 's Schubertiade programme will be released on the Brilliant Classics label.
After obtaining her master's degree in singing and recorder at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven, Griet studied at the Dutch National Opera Academy. In 2007 she graduated "magna cum laude" from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, from which she also received the "Ruim Baan Voor Talent" prize for further studies with Jard van Nes and Margreet Honig. She participated in Lied masterclasses with, among others, Jozef De Beenhouwer, Rudolf Jansen, Christian Gerhaher, Udo Reinemann, Petteri Salomaa, and Françoise Pollet.
From an early age I loved singing and was very interested by the variety of musical genres and possibilities of the voice.
After my studies in singing and specialisation in opera and classical song, I kept on searching for new repertoire, expanding my vocal flexibility and musicality, singing a good amount of classical song repertoire, contemporary music as well as medieval, renaissance and baroque music.
Today I give concerts with various orchestras and conductors, singing solo-parts in all kinds of oratoria, operas and cantatas all over Europe.
A great amount of my practise and concert work is dedicated to J.S.Bach, his contemporaries and predecessors. I like how Bach challenges me every day, both in musicality and flexibility of the voice. I have worked a lot with Bach-experts like Jos van Veldhoven, Philippe Herreweghe, Dorothée Mields and Peter Kooij who taught me how to explore and perform Bach's music.
Another musical love of mine is the song repertoire, with German and French songs on top. This season I'm touring a program around the blissfull Clara Schumann and there is a new program with French song and chanson on the way with Nicolas Callot (piano) and Bart Rodyns (harmonium).
And you know what? I love making cd-recordings. The whole process of making something beautiful is always a grand feast for me. Therefore you can find me on many cd's and video's online. *Spoiler-alert* In September 2020 my first solo-cd will be released. I'm looking forward!
Il Gardellino
The ensemble takes its name from Vivaldi ’s musical portrait of a virtuoso goldfinch, the concerto da camera del Gardellino. Oboist Marcel Ponseele and flautist Jan De Winne initiated a series of concerts of chamber music in 1988; one other musician who took part at that time was bassoonist Marc Minkowski. After several years of performing chamber works, five string players joined the ensemble in 1998, with the result that a much wider repertoire was made available to the group. The stimulus and support offered by Belgian Radio Klara at that time also gave the ensemble the means to continue its growth. Thanks to the generous support of the Vlaamse Gemeenschap from the year 2000 onwards, Il Gardellino has become a permanent part of the musical landscape both in Belgium and abroad.
The ensemble’s repertoire and philosophy can be compared to an active volcano: it is continually recreated and renewed. Il Gardellino carries out thorough research into the historical background of the works it performs, so that each work that they perform, no matter from what period, will be presented according the performance style of the time for today’s audiences. Over many years of such work, Il Gardellino has created a sound world that is very much its own.
The ensemble’s admiration for the works of Johann Sebastian Bach has ensured that these compositions lie at the heart of their repertoire; Il Gardellino has nonetheless set itself the challenge of performing the works of composers who are unjustly lesser-known, as can be seen from their many recordings and concerts of the works of Eichner, Graun, Fasch, Janitsch, Stölzel and Heinichen. The ensemble prefers to perform in historic spaces, where the harmonic relationship between music and architecture creates its own dialogue with the audience.
The eight permanent members of the ensemble are joined by singers, extra winds and strings according to the requirements of the work being performed. The musicians are eminent specialists in historic performance practice and internationally renowned performers of baroque music: Marcel Ponseele (oboe), Jan De Winne (traverso), Ryo Terakado, Mayumi Hirasaki, Joanna Huszcza, François Fernandez (violin), Kaat De Cock and Ingrid Bourgeois (viola), Emmanuel Balssa, Ira Givol and Ronan Kernoa (cello), Vittorio Ghielmi (gamba), Alain Derijckere (bassoon), Frank Coppieters and Korneel Lecompte (double bass), Shalev Ad-El, Lorenzo Ghielmi and Bart Naessens (harpsichord). The ensemble also collaborates with well-known soloists as well as with other leading ensembles such as Cappella Amsterdam.
Il Gardellino is highly regarded both in national and international musical circles and is a frequent guest at important European music festivals and concert halls such as the MA Festival in Bruges, the Ghent Festival van Vlaanderen, the Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht, the Festival de Sablé and Festival de Sainte as well as other festivals in Prague, Innsbruck, Berlin, Regensburg, Leipzig and Barcelona. The ensemble has also appeared in Australia, Asia, the USA, Central and South America, Israel and Russia. Their concert tours are often combined with series of master classes.
Il Gardellino possesses a comprehensive discography, having recorded for the Accent, Klara, Eufoda and Passacaille labels. These recordings have been acclaimed by both press and public; several of them have been awarded the Diapason d’Or and Classica by the international music press.
