Hendrik Bouman

Hendrik "Henk" Bouman (born 1951) is a Dutch harpsichordist, conductor and composer of music written in the baroque and classical idioms of the 17th & 18th Century.

Biography

He studied at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam with Ton Koopman. He was harpsichordist with the ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln from 1976 to 1983, with whom he toured worldwide under the auspices of the Goethe Institute and recorded extensively. He was formerly professor of harpsichord at Concordia University and the Université Laval in Québec, where he specialized in performance practice, improvisation and composition for keyboard players. He first introduced improvisation into his recitals in 1993 at the Festival Domaine Forget in Québec. Aside from playing, he has also designed and built his own harpsichords.

He made his conducting debut in the première of the mass by Alain Pièrard at the Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal) in 1985. The following year he founded the period orchestra Les Nations de Montréal, which he directed in 1987 in the modern revival of the opera "Amadis de Gaule" for the tricentenary of Lully with soloists and choir of the Atélier de l'Opéra de l'Université Laval. He made his American conducting debut with the Portland Baroque Orchestra and Choir in performances of Handel's "Messiah" in 1990.

He has been festival director of "Rendez-vous con Hendrik Bouman" (Italy 1992), the "Halifax 1749 Baroque Festival" (Nova Scotia 1999) "Baroque by the Sea" (Prince Edward Island 1999/2004) and is artistic director of "Baroque SaMuse" (Montreal, Spring 2007) a concert series which is also dedicated to the performance of his compositions, improvisations, and transcriptions of historical repertoire.

He has lived in Holland, Germany, Italy, France, Québec and India and speaks French, English, Italian, German and Dutch. Outside music, he is an avid sailor and cartoonist.

Activity as a composer

In 1993, with over 18 years as performer, researcher and professor in early music, he embarked on the composition of new music in baroque and classical idioms according to the standards of the 17th & 18th century. This was for him a natural development of the ongoing revival of baroque music. In creating his new baroque style compositions, he employs various European national idioms and their many typical forms. He first played his contemporary 'baroque' music in South Africa in 1994.

He has composed over 75 works in baroque and classical idioms for harpsichord; piano; organ; clavichord; cello solo; violin solo; flute solo; recorder solo as well as quartets; trios; duets; sonatas; symphonies; ouvertures; harpsichord concerti; a recorder concerto; a cello concerto and a baroque opera.

Concerts dedicated to his music have been broadcasted by CBC Toronto, Halifax, Moncton, ATV and CBCTV Maritimes, and Radio France/France Musiques. His "Menuet du Matin" was chosen as a theme of Radio Canada's "Les Bonheurs de Sophie" in 1998, and CBCTV News broadcasted his composition "HRH Princess Diana's Ground", as tribute on September 1, 1997. His CDs of compositions dedicated to his wife Anna, "Little Notebook for Anna I & II", were released in 1998.

He has played over 50 of his compositions in solo recital and with flutists Brian Berryman and Grégoire Jeay; recorder players Matthias Maute, Sophie Larivière, and Ambikaprasad Mallik; baroque violinist Hajo Bäss; viol player Susie Napper; cellist Ifan Williams, and with his ensemble Concerto Felice. Hajo Bäss has premiered the "Fantaisie pour violon seul", which was composed particularly for him. Bouman also composed the music (which he directed from the harpsichord) for a production of Molière's Le Malade Imaginaire in Auroville, India in 2006.

He has also made 20 transcriptions of works by François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and J. S. Bach, including two Brandenburg Concerti in a version for two harpsichords and an orchestration of his "Italian Concerto". Schott has published some of his basso continuo realisations.

References

Early Music America, 2007.

External links

* [http://www.hendrikbouman.com Hendrik Bouman Website]
* [http://www.voxsaeculorum.org/ Vox Saeculorum]
* [http://www.freewebs.com/scharffeneck Scharffeneck collection of Contemporary Early Music]