Conductors

Chief conductor (from season 2011-2012)

• Risto Joost

  Conductor Risto Joost (b 1980) has graduated from the Estonian Academy of Music for choral and orchestral conducting as well as singing, and received further training at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In spring 2008 Risto Joost graduated from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, majoring in orchestral conducting with Prof. Jorma Panula.

  Risto Joost has conducted many well-known orchestras such as Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Ostrobothian Chamber Orchestra, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and many others.
  
  In June 2007, Risto Joost made his debut in the Estonian National Opera conducting Erkki-Sven Tüür’s opera Wallenberg and since 2009 has been holding the permanent position of conductor.
  In the Estonian National Opera he has conducted the operas La Bohème by Puccini, Carmen by Bizet, I Capuleti e i Montecchi by Bellini, Love for Three Oranges by Prokofjev, La Finta Giardiniera by Mozart (in co-operation with the opera studio of the Estonian Academy of Music), the short ballet Pelléas and Mélisande by Schönberg and larger ballet performances, such as Swan Lake and The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky, Coppelia by Léo Delibes, Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs by Harangozó and Manon by Massenet.

  Since 2000, Risto Joost has been a regular participant in the Estonian Music Days, Nyyd Festival, Festival of the Young Estonian Composers - conducting more than 50 première performances, ranging from chamber music to extensive symphonic repertoire with different orchestras. Risto Joost has also conducted many renowned choirs, such as the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, State Choir Latvija, Swedish Radio Choir, Ars Nova Copenhagen and the Netherlands Chamberchoir. Since 2010, he holds the position of artistic advisor to the Glasperlenspiel Festival.

  An especially noteworthy contribution to the Estonian music is Risto Joost’s role as the founder and initiator of two sizable ensembles: in 1999, he founded chamber choir Voces Musicales and in 2008, chamber orchestra Tallinn Sinfonietta. Currently they are working on a major project: Mozart and his Symphonies, with an ambition to perform all published symphonies by the composer. Both ensembles have become important and finely polished carriers of Estonian musical culture. 

  In addition to his conducting, Risto Joost also has an active career as a countertenor. His solo repertoire includes works from the renaissance and baroque periods and modern repertoire. He has performed at festivals such as the Musica Antiqua Festival in Bruges, the Steve Reich Festival in the UK and the Stockholm Early Music Festival, working with orchestras like Concerto Copenhagen, the Belgian Baroque Orchestra B’Rock, the Scottisch Chamber Orchestra and ensembles like Phantasm (UK) and the Kronos Quartet (USA). From 2003 to 2009 Risto Joost was a singer in Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices.

  From the season of 2011/2012 Risto Joost is the principal conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Choir.

  October 2011

Principal guest conductor

• Peter Dijkstra

  In August 2005 the Dutch conductor Peter Dijkstra was named Principal Guest Conductor of the Nederlands Kamerkoor.
  What the choir members and Dijkstra together achieved with their performances of the modern Dutch music in the ‘Under the Olive Tree’ programme during the 2004/05 season was considered so exceptional that it was decided to reinforce this young conductor’s association with the Nederlands Kamerkoor by awarding him this title.

  Peter Dijkstra studied choral conducting and solo voice at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where he graduated with distinction.

  He has become a much sought-after guest of professional choirs in Western Europe, working regularly with the RIAS Chamber Choir in Berlin, the Swedish Radio Choir, Cappella Amsterdam, the Bavarian Radio Choir in Münich and the SWR Vokalensemble in Stuttgart. In October 2003 he won first prize at the Eric Ericson Award in Stockholm, an international competition for conductors.
  With his own vocal ensemble The Gents Dijkstra gained international recognition as a result of their foreign tours and critically acclaimed CD recordings.
  At the beginning of 2006, however, Peter decided to say farewell to The Gents in order to devote more time to his growing international commitments, one of which being his appointment (with effect from September 2007) as chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in Stockholm.

Honorary guest conductor

• Paul Van Nevel

  Paul Van Nevel made his name as founder and leader of the Huelgas Ensemble, which he established following his activities at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He specializes in the polyphonic music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, studying its original source material and notation. He attempts in his interpretation of it to take into consideration as much as possible the spirit of the age in which it was written (literature, old pronunciation, experience of time and tempo, improvised counterpoint, rhetorical attitudes and suchlike). Thanks to a number of grants Van Nevel was able to study manuscripts in Spain, Italy and France.

  Since collaborating with Sony Classical Van Nevel has built up a worldwide reputation in the area of polyphonic music. Usually involved are totally unknown works which he unearths for the first time and subsequently puts onto CD with his ensemble. In 2000 Van Nevel won the ‘Choc de l’année’ prize given by Le Monde de la Musique for his recording of the isorhythmic motets of Guillaume Dufay.

  Alongside his activities with the Huelgas Ensemble Paul Van Nevel is guest conductor for productions of early polyphony with the Nederlands Kamerkoor.
  In June 1996 he was responsible for the recording with the Nederlands Kamerkoor of the early music volume of Vox Neerlandica for the NM Classics label.
  As well as giving various radio talks Paul Van Nevel has also written many articles about sources and interpretation.

  Baerenreiter has published transcriptions of early polyphony by Van Nevel. He has also written two books: a monograph by Johannes Ciconia (whose integral oeuvre he has also recorded), and “Nicolas Gombert and the adventure of Flemish polyphony”, a work aimed at a broader reading public.
  At present Van Nevel is putting the finishing touches to a book entitled “The Landscape of the Polyphonists”, on the subject of the influence of environment and landscape on the Franco-Flemish composers.
  Paul Van Nevel is an internationally renowned cigar expert.

  In August 2005 Paul Van Nevel became Honorary Guest Conductor of the Nederlands Kamerkoor.

Conductors

• Klaas Stok

  Klaas Stok is chorus master of the Netherlands Chamber Choir. He has conducted various concert series of choral music from the 16th to the 20th centuries, including world premieres by Hans Kox, Mauricio Kagel and Giya Kancheli. He has conducted concerts with the Netherlands Chamber Choir in Marseille, Budapest, Monte Carlo and Freiburg and has made CD recordings of works by Kagel, Kancheli and Jan Vriend amongst others. In the Chamber Choir’s own concert series in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw he has conducted Haydn’s Stabat Mater and Creation and many other works. In 2010 he conducted the world premiere of Willem Boogman’s La Passione della Parola and a quartet of works for choir and a solo instrument by Tsoupaki, Lemeland, Burgan and Gouttenoire.

  Klaas Stok has also conducted many other choirs and ensembles, including Capella Frisiae, the Brabantkoor, Musica Treize (Marseille), the Irish National Chamber Choir and the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart. Klaas Stok began his choral career at a young age with the Deventer Vocal Ensemble, whose conductor he now is. His performances of the St. Matthew Passion in Deventer’s Bergkerk have become known throughout the Netherlands thanks to their unique arrangement of the work’s choral and orchestral forces. Klaas Stok is also conductor and artistic director of the semi-professional choir Consensus Vocalis, a regular performing partner of Concerto d’Amsterdam, the Combattimento Consort, the Parnassus Ensemble and the Orkest van het Oosten. Alongside yearly performances of the great Bach choral works he has also performed Monteverdi’s Vespro della beata Vergine and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. He is also conductor of the professional chamber choir Capella Isalana, with whom he has given premieres of various new works. Consensus Vocalis and Capella Isalana work together as De Nederlandse Kooracademie at the Muziekhuis van het Oosten in Enschede.
  Klaas Stok was appointed to the ArtEZ conservatory in Zwolle in 2009, where he teaches choral conducting and has also taught on the Kurt Thomas course for conductors. Alongside his conducting obligations he is also city organist and a regular performer on the renowned Bader organ in Zutphen’s St. Walburgiskerk. He gave organ recitals in the Netherlands and abroad; he also won major awards at various national and international competitions for improvisation and interpretation and recorded for radio, television and CD.

  October 2011