Bach kuhnau magnificat ton koopman biography

In a career now spanning over sixty years, Ton Koopman, who was born in Zwolle on 2 October 1944, is now recognised as an undisputed world authority in the field of historical performance practice in general and the work of JS Bach in particular.

He is, in effect, the most significant surviving pioneer of historical performance practice, which was still a niche area of classical music during the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Ton Koopman contributed to a reversal of this situation when he founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1979.

With this orchestra and the Amsterdam Baroque Choir, which was set up in 1992, Koopman changed the way in which the object of his greatest love, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, was performed and experienced by his audiences.

 

Own Ensembles

 

This love affair came early in his career and stayed with him after high school when he started his organ, harpsichord and musicology studies in Amsterdam.

He was by then also directing