Ton Koopman
More than 17 times played this month
Koopman was born in Zwolle and grew up in a Catholic family. After secondary school, Ton Koopman studied harpsichord, organ, and musicology in Amsterdam. He received the Prix d'Excellence for both harpsichord and organ. He specialized in Baroque music.
In 1968, he participated in the international harpsichord competition as part of the Festival Musica Antiqua in Bruges. Like Scott Ross and Roswitha Trimborn, he obtained only a 'certificate' for harpsichord playing at that time, which immediately underscores the difficulty of this well-known competition, given the careers these musicians subsequently pursued. Koopman did, however, receive the First Prize for basso continuo at the same competition. In 1979, 1982, and 1985, he was a member of the jury for the triennial organ competition during the same Bruges festival.
In 1979, he founded a baroque orchestra: the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. With this orchestra, he made record and CD recordings of works by, among others, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Heinrich von Biber, Georg Friedrich Handel, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 1993, he founded The Amsterdam Baroque Choir. In 2008, both ensembles were united into the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir (ABO&C).
He is the artistic director of the annual “Itinéraire Baroque” festival in France. From 2011 to 2013, he was a guest conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra.
