Auteur: Joan

Tiemo’s recent operatic roles include Mr. Gobineau and Ben in respectively The Medium and The Telephone by Menotti, Uberto in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas (Purcell). In the R.A.P. program of the Nationale Reisopera he sang William in Robinson Crusoe by Jacques Offenbach (directed by Marcel Sijm).

Since 2007 Tiemo has worked with the Dutch group VocaalLAB which specializes in contemporary music. With them he has performed Wolfgang Rihm’s Séraphin with the Doelen Ensemble, directed by Neil Wallace, Pascal Dusapin’s Passion, directed by Pierre Audi, and Cadenza by Bob Zimmerman with the Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by Micha Hamel. At the Dutch Opera he has performed the role of proletarian in the world premiere of Alexander Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart and was in the cast of The Soldiers by Bernd Alois Zimmerman.

Last season Tiemo performed Kassandra in Oresteia by Xenakis, a co-production of Transparant (Belgium), Asko | Schönberg ensemble, and VocaalLAB Netherlands. With LOD he then participated in the creation of Les Aveugles, a production based on Maeterlinck’s play, and he performed the role of Veled in the opera Mevlana by Michael Ellison in a coproduction of VocaalLAB and the Hezarfen-ensemble from Istanbul.

​Als solist ontving Nanette masterclasses van Margreet Honig, Christianne Stotijn, Sophie Karthäuser en Charlotte Margiono. Daarnaast volgde ze samen met pianist Mieke Verduijn de Udo Reinemann International Masterclasses in Brussel.

Haar passie voor zingen ontstond bij ensemblezang, waardoor Nanette veel ervaring heeft op dit gebied en ze vaak in ensembleverband te horen is. Momenteel zingt ze bij Vocaal Ensemble Piacevole (Gerben Budding), gespecialiseerd in oude muziek, de Cantors Martini (Remco de Graas en het Ars Musica Kamerkoor (Patrick van der Linden).

Franske soleerde onder andere in Händels Messiah en de Brockes Passion, de Matthäus- en Johannes-Passion, het Weihnachts-Oratorium, het Magnificat en de Hohe Messe van Bach, het Requiem van Mozart, de Mis in D van Dvořák, Petite Messe Solennelle en Stabat Mater van Rossini. Tevens nam zij de rol van Dido in Dido and Aeneas van Purcell en de rol van derde dame in Die Zauberflöte van Mozart op zich.

In oktober 2016 won zij de tweede prijs bij het Bach Vocalistenconcours Tilburg. In april 2017 nam zij samen met pianist Ruben Tekelenburg deel aan The International Student LiedDuo Competition waar zij de halve finale behaalden. Sinds 2018 vormt Franske een vast duo met pianiste Maxime Snaterse met wie zij een gedeelde eerste prijs won tijdens het Festival Vocallis te Vaals in oktober 2018.

Paul Valk (1969) studeerde orgel, koordirectie en kerkmuziek aan het Conservatorium en aan het Nederlands Instituut voor Kerkmuziek, beide in Utrecht, en behaalde aldaar zijn diploma’s. Daarnaast specialiseerde hij zich in piano, zang en orkestdirectie.
Zijn orgeldocenten waren o.a. Kees van Houten en Bernard Winsemius en leermeester voor koordirectie was Krijn Koetsveld.

American baritone Ben Kazez recently performed Theodora at Snape Maltings (England) under Dame Sarah Connolly and Christian Curnyn, Bach’s Hercules at Petit Palau de la Música Catalana (Barcelona) under Václav Luks and Shunske Sato, Vivaldi’s Gloria with Bach Collegium San Diego, and Messiah at St John’s Smith Square (London). He has also sung major works of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach, including 35 Bach cantatas.

In the Monteverdi Choir under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Ben has sung at the Salzburg Festival, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein, Chapelle Royale de Versailles, Teatro La Fenice, Westminster Cathedral, and Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms). In Italy-based Ghislieri he has sung at Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and in 2021–22 he joins Apollo’s Fire.

Ben’s 2021–22 season includes Schumann’s Dichterliebe in San Francisco, French cantatas in Switzerland, Fauré Requiem in California, Messiah with Collegium Cincinnati, and Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit with Bach Collegium San Diego.

During the pandemic lockdowns, Ben created a vocal repertoire search tool that has been featured by music libraries at Juilliard, Royal Academy of Music, Stanford, and UC Berkeley.

Ben spent the first five years of his career creating mobile apps that the New York Times called “brilliant.” He became a Britten–Pears Young Artist in 2016 and earned a master’s degree from London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2018. He is fluent in French and Italian.

American-Dutch soprano Katharine Dain performs opera, chamber music, orchestral repertoire, and oratorio on international stages and is a probing curator and collaborator on many kinds of creative projects. Highlights of recent seasons include a debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Antony Hermus in the premiere of a commissioned work by Bram Kortekaas, Mozart Don Giovanni (Donna Anna) with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and the Armel Opera Festival, orchestral song cycles of Dutilleux and Berlioz with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ryan Bancroft, and songs of Berg and Zemlinsky arranged and conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. Dain’s 2020 album Regards sur l’Infini with pianist Sam Armstrong, featuring Messiaen Poèmes pour Mi and songs by Debussy, Delbos, Dutilleux, and Saariaho, was widely praised (“an extraordinarily polished and thought-through disc … glowing” —The Guardian), and her performance in the the Clermont-Ferrand International Competition, called a “revelation” by Diapason, led to her debut as Konstanze in Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the opera houses of Clermont-Ferrand, Avignon, Rouen, Massy, and Reims.

Increasingly known for her ease in contemporary and twentieth-century music, Dain first appeared with the Dutch National Opera in Claude Vivier Kopernikus and has since revisted the opera in North and South America. In the 2021-’22 season, she will be both singer and co-creator (with conductor Manoj Kamps, director Lisenka Heijboer Castañón, and Asko|Schönberg) on a new production for the DNO’s Opera Forward Festival. She works frequently with Asko and other ensembles known for experimental and multidisciplinary projects, and she is often called for jump-ins of unusual concert repertoire, which has led to invitations at the Concertgebouw’s Zaterdagmatinee Kleine Zaal recital series, the Holland Festival, and the West Cork and Aldeburgh Festivals (among others) in works by Andriessen, Gubaidulina, Korngold, Marx, Nono, Orff, Ravel, Shostakovich, Tavener, and van de Putte.

Dain is equally at home in oratorio; some favorite past performances include Matthäus-Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Messiah in Carnegie Hall, Mozart Requiem with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Stravinsky Les Noces with the New York City Ballet, and Brahms Requiem with Cappella Amsterdam. A passionate promoter of chamber music and song, Dain has co-founded several ensembles, including Damask Vocal Quartet, whose 2018 album O schöne Nacht, featuring music of Brahms and his contemporaries, won France’s Choc de Classica award. She has performed with the Quiroga, Ragazze, Navarra, Van Brugh, Carducci, Callino, and Momenta string quartets and is a frequent guest on international chamber music festivals and series.

Dain holds degrees from Harvard University, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Mannes College of Music, and she currently lives in Rotterdam.