Ton Koopman is a leading figure in Early Music and historically informed performance practice. As organist and harpsichordist Ton Koopman has performed all over the world and played the most beautiful historical instruments of Europe. His Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir has gained worldwide fame as one of the best ensembles on period instruments. Between 1994 and 2004 Ton Koopman and ABO&C have recorded all sacred and secular cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, an extraordinary project that earned international acclaim. After that Koopman recorded the complete works by Bach’s predecessor, Dieterich Buxtehude. Besides performing as a soloist and with his ABO&C, Ton Koopman is very active as a guest conductor for modern orchestras and also devotes part of his time to teaching. Ton Koopman is president of the International Dieterich Buxtehude Society and, since 2019, president of the Leipzig Bach Archiv.

Ton Koopman founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1979. The group consists of internationally renowned baroque specialists who meet up several times a year and work together to prepare and perform new exciting programmes. For the musicians each concert is a new experience and Koopman's boundless energy and enthusiasm are a sure guarantee of the highest quality.
The Amsterdam Baroque Choir was founded in 1992 and it made its debut during the Holland Festival of Early Music in Utrecht performing the world première of the Requiem (for 15 voices) and Vespers (for 32 voices) by H.I.F. Biber. The recording of both of these works won the Cannes Classical Award for the best performance of 17th/18th century choral music. For its rare combination of textural clarity and interpretative flexibility, the Amsterdam Baroque Choir is considered among today’s most outstanding choirs. In 1994 Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir embarked upon the most ambitious recording project of the last decades: the integral recording of Bach’s secular and sacred cantatas. For this extraordinary project Koopman and his ensemble received the Deutsche Schallplatten-Preis Echo Klassik. Next to the CD recordings three books have been edited and published by Ton Koopman and the musicologist Christoph Wolff and a series of six documentaries was produced and broadcasted by various TV stations.
Alongside Bach’s music the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir has recorded all major baroque and classical works. Major recognitions include the Gramophone Award, Diapason d'Or, 10-Repertoire, Stern des Monats-Fono Forum, the Prix Hector Berlioz and two Edison Awards. In 2008 the ensemble and Ton Koopman have been honoured with the prestigious BBC Award. Since March 2003 “Antoine Marchand”, a new sub-label of Challenge Classics, took over the release of Koopman’s new recordings and among many others has published 22 CD boxes of the Bach Cantatas, a new recording of the St. Matthew Passion (on CD and DVD) and St. Markus Passion of J.S. Bach (DVD), live recorded in Milan, as well as the first seven volumes of the Buxtehude Opera-Omnia Edition. Ton Koopman and the ABO & ABC are regular guests at the major concert halls of Europe, the USA and Japan. In the 2008/09 season they will tour extensively in Europe (Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, Milan, Cologne, Dresden, Düsseldorf etc) and in Far East with concerts in Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo.

Bass-baritone Klaus Mertens is celebrated by critics as an “excellent master of his craft” for his “unique power of expression, his congenial timbre, his keen intuition for text, as well as his convincing manner of making music”. He has recorded more than 200 CDs, including the entire works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Dietrich Buxtehude. These testify eloquently to his art of singing, which spans a great arch from Monteverdi to his contemporaries. Characterized as “the most significant Telemann interpreter of our time”, Mertens received the Telemann prize of the city of Magdeburg in 2016. In 2019, he was honored with the renowned Bach medal of the city of Leipzig as the “ideal interpreter of Bach’s cantatas and passion texts”.

Born 1956 in Limburg, Germany, Christoph Prégardien began his musical education as a choirboy. He then studied singing with Martin Gründler and Karlheinz Jarius in Frankfurt, Carla Castellani in Milan, Alois Treml in Stuttgart and attended Hartmut Höll’s lieder-class.
Widely regarded as among the foremost lyric tenors, Christoph Prégardien frequently collaborates with conductors such as Barenboim, Chailly, Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Herreweghe, Luisi, Metzmacher, Nagano, Sawallisch and Thielemann. His repertory spans a wide range from the great Baroque, Classical and Romantic Oratorios to 20th century works by Britten, Killmayer, Rihm, Stravinsky.
Recognized as an eminent recitalist, Christoph Prégardien is regularly welcomed at the major recital venues of Paris, London, Brussels, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Salzburg, Zurich, Vienna, Barcelona and Geneva, as well as during his concert tours throughout Italy, Japan and North America.
A longstanding collaboration unites him with his favourite piano partners Michael Gees and Andreas Staier. Soloist of choice for renowned orchestras, he performed with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Gewand-hausorchester Leipzig, London Philharmonia, Staatskapelle Dresden, Philharmonie de Radio France, the Montreal, Boston, St. Louis and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras.
An important part of his repertory has been recorded by labels such as BMG, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, Sony, Erato, Challenge Classics and Teldec. He is represented on more than a hundred and twenty titles, including nearly all of his active repertoire. His recordings of German Romantic Lied repertory have been highly acclaimed by the public and press and have received international awards including the prestigious Orphée d’Or of the Académie du Disque Lyrique-Prix Georg Solti, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Edison Award, Cannes Classical Award and Diapason d’Or.
As an opera singer, Christoph Prégardien has made stage appearences in major European houses, performing leading roles as Tamino (Zauberflöte), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Almaviva (Il Barbiere di Seviglia), Fenton (Falstaff) and Monteverdi’s Ulisse. In Spring 2005, Christoph Prégardien sang the leading part in Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” at the Paris National Opera conducted by Sylvain Cambreling.
An important aspect in the musical life of Christoph Prégardien is his intensive and varied educational work. From 2000 to 2005 Christoph Prégardien was in charge of a vocal class at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Zurich. Since the autumn of 2004, he is a professor at the Musikhochschule Köln. In a new combination of DVD and book, released in the serie “Schott Master Class”, he presents for the first time questions of singing technique and interpretation in word and picture. Film examples accompagny him during his lessons with masterclass students.
Christoph Prégardien now has a long-term cooperation with Challenge Classics. The first production on our label, released in February 2008, was Schubert’s “Die schöne Müllerin” with pianist Michael Gees. In the fall of 2008 “Schwanengesang” with pianist Andreas Staier followed and “Die schöne Müllerin” was awarded the Midem ‘Record of the Year’ 2009 at MIDEM, the world’s largest music industry trade fair. The duo Christoph Prégardien/Michael Gees also received the MIDEM ‘Vocal Recitals’ Award 2009. Throughout 2008 the recording received critical acclaim from many national and international magazines (Gramophone, Editor’s Choice & „Best of 2008“ among others).

James Gilchrist began his working life as a doctor, turning to a full-time career in music in 1996. His musical interest was fired at a young age, singing first as a chorister in the choir of New College, Oxford, and later as a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge.
James’ extensive concert repertoire has seen him perform in major concert halls throughout the world with conductors including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Roger Norrington, Bernard Labadie, Harry Christophers, Harry Bicket and the late Richard Hickox. In J.S. Bach’s great Passions of St John and St Matthew, James works consistently at the highest level and is recognised as the finest Evangelist of his generation; as one recent BBC Proms reviewer noted, "he hasn’t become a one-man Evangelist industry by chance".
A prolific and versatile recitalist, James enjoys imaginative and varied programming in collaborations with pianists Anna Tilbrook and Julius Drake, and harpist Alison Nicholls. James returned to the Wigmore Hall to begin his project with Anna Tilbrook, Schumann and the English Romantics, pairing Schumann song cycles with new commissions from leading composers, Sally Beamish, Julian Philips and Jonathan Dove, setting English poetry of the Romantic period.
James’ impressive discography includes the title role in Albert Herring and Vaughan Williams’ A Poisoned Kiss, St John Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Finzi song cycle Oh Fair To See, When Laura Smiles with Matthew Wadsworth, Leighton Earth Sweet Earth, Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge, Finzi songs, Britten’s Winter Words and the critically-acclaimed recordings of Schubert’s song cycles.

The repertoire of the Dutch soprano Johannette Zomer ranges from medieval music through all music of the baroque and classical eras, including opera, but also Lieder, French Romanticism and Contemporary music. Johannette’s concert appearances are also many and various. She has worked with Baroque specialists such as Philippe Herreweghe, Ton Koopman, Frans Brüggen, René Jacobs, Reinard Goebel and Paul McCreesh, but has also worked with conductors including Kent Nagano, Ivan Fisher,Daniel Harding, Valery Gergiev, Reinbert de Leeuw and Peter Eötvös. She regularly gives recitals accompanied by theorbo player Fred Jacobs or fortepiano specialist Arthur Schoonderwoerd.
Johannette made her opera debut as Tebaldo in Verdi’s Don Carlo with the Nationale Reisopera in October 1996. Since then she has made regular appearances in roles including Belinda, Pamina, La Musica, Euridice, Dalinda and Ilia, and also as Amanda in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre and Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.
Regularly she contributes to recording projects. A few of her releases – all very well received in both press and radio – are the Bach Cantatas album with the English ensemble Florilegium for which she won an Edison Award, the album With Endless Teares with theorbist Fred Jacobs, showing the development of English 17th Century Song, and the album Love & Madness, an album with Händel aria’s together with Bart Schneemann, oboe.
In 2013 she founded her own ensemble the Tulipa Consort. She has performed with this ensemble at the Göttinger Handel Festspiele and in Amsterdam with Dutch oboist Bart Schneemann.

The Swiss lyric tenor, Jörg Dürmüller, studied violin and voice at the Winterthur Conservatoire in Switzerland with Ruth Binder (1977-1982), and with a scholarship of the Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg with Naan Pöld, Hans Kagel and Hertha Werner (1982-1987). He attended master-classes given by Edith Mathis, Christa Ludwig and Hermann Prey.
Jörg Dürmüller's first opera-engagement led him in 1987 to the Bielefeld City Theatre, where he was a member of the ensemble for five years. From 1995 to 1997 he was engaged as the first tenor at the Brunswick State Theatre under Kammersängerin Brigitte Fassbaender. He appeared also at the State Opera of Hamburg, and at the Theatre in Revier Gelsenkirchen. In 1996 he appeared as a guest at the Comic Opera Berlin in the role of Fernando in Così fan tutte produced by Harry Kupfer, and at the National Theatre of Braunschweig as Andres in Wozzeck by Alban Berg. In 2002 and 2003 he sang the role of Bajazete in George Frideric Handel’s Tamerlano also at the Opera Comique Berlin directed by David Alden.

The Polish mezzo-soprano and contralto, Bogna Bartosz, after leaving school, first studied singing at the Academy of Music in Gdansk (and/or Danzig Music Academy). After graduating with distinction, she continued her studies at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin (Berlin Academy of Arts) under Professor Ingrid Figur, and took part in master-classes with Aribert Reimann, Adele Stolte and Anna Reynolds. At the 9th International J.S. Bach Competition in Leipzig in 1992, Bogna Bartosz won first prize, as well as the special prize awarded by the MDR broadcasting organization in Leipzig.
Since then Bogna Bartosz has sung with well-known orchestras (including Berliner Barock Orchester, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Musica Antiqua Köln, Kammersolisten der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Radio-Symphonie-Orchester-Berlin, Gewandhaus- orchester Leipzig, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Dresdner Philharmoniker and Württembergisches Kammerorchester, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Israel Chamber Orchestra Tel Aviv, Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra) and leading conductors (including Horia Andrescu, Moche Atzmon, Marcus Creed, Philippe Entremont, Jörg Faerber, Enoch zu Guttenberg, Philippe Herreweghe, Marek Janowski, Ton Koopman, Krzysztof Penderecki, Helmuth Rilling, Jeffrey Tate, Marcello Viotti, Lothar Zagrosek, Udo Zimmermann), in all the major concert halls in Germany (such as Berliner Philharmonie, Berliner Konzerthaus, Leipziger Gewandhaus, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Kölner Philharmonie, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Glocke Bremen, Hamburger Musikhalle, Liederhalle Stuttgart), as well as in Europe, the USA and Israel, and at numerous major festivals.