Jan Willem de Vriend, designated “a godsend from the Netherlands” by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, is driven by the pioneering spirit of historically informed perfomance practice. As music director of the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, which he founded in 1982, he specialised in repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, reviving a wealth of rarely heard works through historically informed performances on modern instruments, praised by Gramophone magazine for their “technical finesse and a lively feeling for characterization”.
An award-winner for his creative contribution to classical music, Jan Willem de Vriend has more than 50,000 followers on Spotify and is in demand as a conductor around the world, appearing regularly with such orchestras as the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest Den Haag, Belgian National Orchestra, Tonhalle Zurich, Orchestre National de Lyon, Bergen Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, the symphony orchestras of Netherlands Radio and Hessischer Rundfunk (Frankfurt Radio Symphony), Melbourne Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic. He is Principal Conductor Designate of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic and Orchestre National de Lille, and former Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and the Brabant Orchestra.
For the Challenge Classics label, de Vriend and the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra have recorded the complete Mendelssohn symphonies and all Beethoven’s symphonies and concertos with, among others, pianist Hannes Minnaar and violinist Liza Ferschtman. De Vriend’s interpretation of the Symphony No 7 prompted Classic FM to admire “a bounding flair that does real justice to the composer’s capacity for joy”. A further landmark of his recorded catalogue is his complete recording of the Schubert symphonies with the Residentie Orkest Den Haag.
De Vriend’s collaborative spirit is equally evident in his work for the stage, notably with opera director Eva Buchmann and Combattimento Consort Amsterdam. In addition to works by Monteverdi, Haydn, Handel and Telemann, their productions in Europe and the USA have included staged versions of Bach’s ‘Hunting’ and ‘Coffee’ Cantatas at the Bachfest Leipzig, and operas by Mozart, Rossini, Verdi and Cherubini, among them Mozart’s Don Giovanni und Rossini’s La gazzetta, both toured in Switzerland. De Vriend has also conducted operatic productions in Amsterdam (with the Nederlandse Reisopera), Barcelona, Strasbourg, Lucerne, Schwetzingen and Bergen.

Swedish soprano Lisa Larsson started her career as a flautist and studied singing in Basel. Her first engagement was at the Zurich Opera House, where she performed under a number of conductors including Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Franz Welser-Möst. Following her debut at La Scala in Milan in ›The Magic Flute‹ under Riccardo Muti, she swiftly developed her international opera career, in particular as a Mozart singer performing parts such as Susanna, Pamina, Zaide, Zerlina, Servilia, Ilia, Fortuna and Ismene; other roles included Marzelline, Anne Trulove, Ännchen, Eurydice, Adele, Adina, Oscar, Xenia, Tytania, Polissena and Morgana. She appeared at renowned European opera houses including the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Royal Danish Opera, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, the Leipzig Opera, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Royal Swedish Opera and the Theater Basel as well as at the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Glyndebourne Festival and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.
Lisa Larsson is also a remarkably versatile concert singer of international renown. In recent years she has constantly expanded her broad repertoire with works by Mahler, Richard Strauss, Brahms, Berlioz, Britten and Stravinsky, and has performed in a number of world premieres of contemporary works. Conductors she has worked with include Claudio Abbado, Sir Colin Davis, Daniel Harding, Adam Fischer, Mikhail Pletnev, David Zinman, Antonello Manacorda, Lawrence Renes, Massimo Zanetti, Louis Langrée, Douglas Boyd, Juanjo Mena, Christian Arming, Andrew Manze, Stefan Solyom, Vassily Sinaisky and Edo de Waart. Lisa Larsson has performed with leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Netherlands Philharmonic, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the New Japan Philharmonic.
In the field of baroque music, she has often worked with leading conductors and their orchestras, including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, Frans Brüggen, Andrea Marcon, Emmanuelle Haïm, Ton Koopman, Nathalie Stutzmann, Nicholas McGegan, Paul Goodwin, Martin Haselböck, Gottfried von der Goltz, Trevor Pinnock, Richard Egarr, Fabio Bonizzoni, Jan Willem de Vriend and David Stern.
Highlights of her 2014 | 2015 season include two world premieres of works dedicated to her by Swedish composer Rolf Martinsson: “Ich denke Dein…” for soprano and orchestra, commissioned by the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, and “Garden of Devotion” for soprano and string orchestra, commissioned by the Swedish ensemble Musica Vitae.
“Ich denke Dein…” will be first performed by the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and conducted by John Storgårds who will also lead the Finnish premiere with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. The Dutch premiere will be with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under its chief conductor Marc Albrecht in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. More performances are planned for future seasons with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.
"Garden of Devotion" will be first performed on tour in Sweden by Musica Vitae and conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann. Further performances are scheduled with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Olari Elts as well as the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra under Stefan Solyom. More performances in future seasons are planned with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Staatskapelle Weimar and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra.
Lisa Larsson will continue her many years of collaboration with Antonello Manacorda in performances of Beethoven’s 9th symphony in the Netherlands as well as Alban Berg’s “Seven Early Songs” and Mahler’s 4th symphony with the BBC Philharmonic. She will also sing the Berg cycle with Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at the Prague Spring Festival and in Liverpool. Performances of Mahler’s 2nd symphony, conducted by Stefan Asbury, are planned for a tour in Holland. Other projects she is looking forward to are two new recital programmes with concerts in Italy together with Andrea Lucchesini and in Switzerland with Roland Pöntinen.
Recent additions to her substantial discography are two Challenge Classics releases: A Haydn album with the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam under the direction of Jan Willem de Vriend as well as Berlioz programme with the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Antonello Manacorda who is also the conductor of her next CD to be released on the same label in the autumn of 2014 and featuring Mahler’s 4th symphony combined with a selection of “Wunderhorn” songs by Mahler. In spring 2015 she will record Rolf Martinsson’s “Orchestral Songs on Poems by Emily Dickens” with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Manze for BIS Records. Her other recordings include Strauss‘ ›Four Last Songs‹ under Douglas Boyd, Mahler’s 8th symphony under David Zinman, the Mozart operas ›Don Giovanni‹ under Daniel Harding, ›Mitridate‹ under Adam Fischer, ›Il sogno di Scipione‹ under Gottfried von der Goltz, Händel‘s ›Jephta‹ under David Stern as well as numerous Bach Cantatas under Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Ton Koopman. With the latter she also recorded Bach’s Christmas and Easter Oratorio as well as the Magnificat.

Over the past 30 years, Combattimento Consort Amsterdam has established a strong national and international reputation. The ensemble is famous for the high quality and energy of its performances. That, together with its varied and often surprising and unfamiliar repertoire, for formations ranging from chamber ensemble to chamber orchestra, and from oratorios to operas, has made it one of the most successful Baroque ensembles in the world. The Combattimento Consort’s roughly 60 performances a year are distinguished by the originality of the ensemble’s presentation, led by one of the trend-setting conductors in Dutch musical life, Jan Willem de Vriend, who in November 2012 received the Radio 4 Prize.
The Combattimento Consort has gone on a number of tours in recent years to Germany, Spain, Central Europe, South America, Japan, Russia and the United States. It has recorded more than 35 CDs and DVDs – this year, its CD of Handel’s Concerto Grossi op. 6 will be released. The ensemble has worked with prominent soloists such as Barbara Bonney, Andreas Scholl and Sol Gabeta, Thomas Zehetmair and Sabine Meyer, as well as with the Netherlands Chamber Choir, the Nationale Reisopera and Cappella Amsterdam. The spearhead of its artistic direction is the performance of unfamiliar and as yet unpublished repertoire. Innumerable searches through libraries, churches and cloisters over the past 30 years have resulted in a notable collection of remarkable performances. In 2007, for example, Combattimento Consort Amsterdam presented Arminio, the only surviving opera of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Over the years, it has developed a distinctive style of playing, which has even come to be known as the “Combattimento School” of performance. Recognizable and energetic, inventive, style-conscious and inspiring. The ensemble presents itself as a “consort”, but with the visibility of the “individual”. Jan Willem de Vriend leads the Combattimento Consort from the “first chair”, appearing as a conductor only in the larger productions (operas and oratorios). The instrumental soloists are in most cases members of the ensemble.