François Couperin was a French composer. He is the most imporant and best known member of the Couperin family, which consisted of a whole dynasty of composers. Couperin was nicknamed 'Le Grand' (the Great), and is considered to be one of the most seminal composers of the Baroque period, especially in regard to his music for harpsichord. His keyboard music is characterised by a strong idiomatic nature, both in its personal style and in its close relation to the instrument's features.

Next to his harpsichord music, Couperin composed music for organ, vocal music, both sacred and secular, and chamber music. Moreover, he published several theoretical treatises on the playing techniques on the harpsichord and its role in the accompaniment of music.

Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk was born in Amsterdam in 1955 to a Dutch-Indonesian family. He began to improvise music at a young age, and only later began to write down his musical thoughts. After theatrical projects with pop musicians (such as Debris, soli for singers, electric guitars, wind, brass and percussion, and the dance opera First Things First, for trios of dancers, singers, guitarists, and percussionists) he began more frequently to choose existing music as a point of departure in instrumental works for ensembles such as La Fontegara Amsterdam and Camerata Trajectina. This led to pieces for classical ensembles based on historical music, such as the piano quintet Tandernaken, the guitar quintet Over the Water (with Indonesian kroncong music), the piano trio De tout mon coeur (on Psalm 9 and old Dutch melodies), the violin sonata Deep River, based on the spiritual of that name, and the string quartet Moravian Souls which uses historic hymns of the Moravian Brothers (the Hernhutters). In doing so he strives for no other originality than that of a personal view of traditions. He deliberately avoids the most recent trends in modern classical music. For him the classical music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is a model of the combination of all available styles that spark recognition among players and listeners. In the twentieth century that means primarily styles from jazz, popular music and folk music from Africa and South America. As a musicologist he specializes in the music of the twentieth century and teaches 20th and 21st century music at the Amsterdam Conservatory.

Calliope Tsoupaki was born in 1963 in Piraeus, Greece. In 1988 she moved to the Netherlands to study composition with her idol Louis Andriessen. She has grown into one of the most talked-about composers in that country. Calliope Tsoupaki makes music that has a mood of timelessness. Her objective is expressing the essence as simply and clearly as possible. In her compositions she uses elements of early and contemporary music as well as the music of Greece and the Middle East. Combining these aspects, she skillfully creates a completely personal style. Her music is praised for its melodic character, warm sound and emotional quality. To date her oeuvre consists of more than 100 works for diverse instrumentation and instruments from different cultures (qaunun, ney, kemençe, hurdy gurdy, vielle, viola da gamba), from solo to orchestral works, choral music, dance, theatre, opera and multisensory projects. She has developed into one of the defining composers of Dutch musical life, collaborating with, among others, Eric Vloeimans, Pierre Audi, Paul Koek, Jordi Savall, Kees Boeke, Frances-Marie Uitti and ensembles including the Metropole Orchestra, Netherlands Bach Society, Ensemble Tetraktys, Neue Vocalisten Stuttgart, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Nieuw Amsterdams Peil, Ergon Ensemble and Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Overwhelming successes include her operas Fortress Europe and Mariken in the Garden of Delights, St. Luke Passion, song cycle Face of Love for singer Nena Venetsanou, oratorio Oidipous, Narcissus (a play for music and scent), Maria for the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, the chamber operas Dark (about Joan of Arc, libretto Edzard Mik), Vita Nova (based on Dante's book of the same title) and the string quartet Triptychon for the DoelenKwartet.
Calliope Tsoupaki teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.