Jan Van der Crabben

The Belgian baritone, Jan van der Crabben, studied first piano with Aquiles delle Vigne at the Etterbeek Academy, and then transferred to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, where his teachers included Louis Devos. He completed his studies there in 1989, graduating with a first prize and the highest distinction. In 1990 he continued his studies privately with Vera Rosza in London. Also that year he won prizes for the best Interpretation of a French Song and for Contemporary Music at the Concours International d'Oratorio et de Lied in Clermont-Ferrand.
Jan van der Crabben is active as a soloist both in Belgium and abroad and among the conductors with whom he has worked are Andrew Lawrence-King, Patrick Peire, Alexander Rahbari and Pierre Bartholomée. He has also appeared at numerous festivals, including the Festival de Chambord and the Flanders Festival, and has taken part in master-classes with Elio Battaglia, Bernhard Kruysen and Margaret Honig. In 1991 he created the title role in the world première of Lucien Posman’s opera Hercules Hoché. But his chief interests remain the oratorio and the German Lied. He has made several recordings of works by W.A. Mozart, J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, Fiocco, De Fesch, Schubert and Heinrich von Herzogenberg. In 1996 he was a semi-finalist in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.