Accompanists
Hans Eijsackers was born in The Hague. When he was 13 years old he won the first Rotterdam Piano-Driedaagse and Princess Christina Competition. He was winner of the European Piano Competition in 1991 in Luxembourg, playing Rachmaninow’s Concerto nr.2 with the R.T.L. Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jacques Mercier. He also won the Special Prize for the best song accompaniment. Among his professors were: Koos Bons, Gerard van Blerk, Jan Wijn and György Sebök. In 1992 he graduated at the Sweelinck Conservatory of Music in Amsterdam. In 1994 he was invited to study at the Mozart Academy in Krakow. As a result he did recitals in Poland, Budapest, Cornwall, Asia and New York. Next to his work as a professor at the conservatories of Tilburg and The Hague he performs as soloist, chamber musician and song accompanist. He did concert tours in Italy, Russia and the Far East (Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan) etc. In 1993, as well as 1994 he received the Medal of the Friends of the Concertgebouw with baritone Geert Smits and flautist Liesbeth Niesten. With mezzo-soprano Xenia Meijer and with clarinettist Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer he toured as “Rising Stars” from the Concertgebouw, playing in important halls like Wigmore Hall, London, the Musikverein, Vienna and Carnegie Hall, New York. Hans regularly appears in European Festivals, and for 4 years he was musical director of the open-air Uitgast Festival in Lelystad. In 2010 he performed concerto’s by Brahms and Martinu with the Robert Schumann Philharmonie in Chemnitz and the Dutch Chamber Orchestra. He was invited to give concerts, masterclasses and lectures in Surabaya, Indonesia. In 2012 he will be soloist in Schostakovitsch Concerto nr.1 with Holland Symfonia for their New Years concertseries. Some of his compositions have been performed regularly the last decade: El Beso, for voice, saxophone and piano, and “Bekentenis”, for narrator and ensemble.
Paul Plummer was educated at Oxford University, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied piano accompaniment. He received tuition from Andrew Ball, Roger Vignoles, and Graham Johnson, and also attended masterclasses with Malcolm Martineau and David Owen-Norris. Whilst living in London, he performed regularly in recital, appearing at the Three Choirs, Oxford Lieder, Presteigne and Edinburgh Festivals as well as in London’s Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room. He has also broadcast several times for BBC Radio 3, and is the pianist on a CD of English song, “Love’s Voice”, with the British tenor Nathan Vale (SOMM Records, 2007). He has a particular interest in vocal technique, having worked for many years in masterclass and private tuition situations with American vocal tutor Sheila Barnes. He has accompanied classes in South Tirol, Luxembourg, Munich and all over Great Britain, and coached on Young Singer Programmes in China, Germany and Belgium, as well as the Jette Parker Young Artists at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. As an opera repetiteur, he first freelanced in England, for the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Opera Holland Park (as chorus master) and English Touring Opera – this lead to overseas engagements in Barbados and Austria; also in Holland, where he has twice worked for Opera OT in Rotterdam (The Death of Klinghoffer, 2004, and Kwasi and Kwame, 2007). In 2008 he left the United Kingdom to seek European opera experience, first as a Solorepetitor at Oper Kiel. Then in 2010 he accepted the position of Studienleiter mit Dirigierverpflichtung at the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck, where he works closely with the Intendantin, Brigitte Fassbaender, to support and prepare the ensemble singers. He is however still active as a recital accompanist, with forthcoming engagements in Burkunstadt and Neuruppin, Germany, and at the Tiroler Landestheater.
Hans Adolfsen studied voice and piano at the Conservatory in Utrecht. As an accompanist he found the ideal combination of both. He has given song recitals in numerous European countries in collaboration with Lina Maria Akerlund, Ulrike Andersen, Renate Arends, Robert Braunschweig, Wilke te Brummelstroete, Rea Claudia Kost, Michael Leibundgut, Marcus Niedermayr, Thomas Oliemans, Kresimir Strazanac and Hanneke de Wit. He also performs regularly with the American saxophonist Harry White. Hans Adolfsen is a sought-after vocal coach and has worked closely for many years with the famous singing teacher Margreet Honig (Amsterdam). In master class settings he not only plays song repertoire, but also a great deal of the operatic repertoire. At the Theatre in Basel he has acted as cembalist and assistant conductor in two productions directed by Herbert Wernicke (Giulio Cesare, Händel, and Bach-cantatas). He has made various recordings, including songs of Johannes Brahms with Lenneke Ruiten, soprano (Brilliant Classics), songs of Rudolf Escher with Marcel Beekman, tenor and Roswitha Müller, mezzo-soprano, and songs of Sergei Rachmaninov with Elisabeth Ebbink, soprano. In 2011 the CD Piano Duets with pianist See Siang Wong (Guild) appeared. A CD of piano improvisations for meditation in production with HARD Studios in Winterthur CH will appear in the near future. Hans Adolfsen is active at the Zurich University of the Arts as an instructor for the interpretation of song and as a répétiteur. He is also on the artistic board of Liedrezital Zürich, formerly Freunde des Liedes. Recently he has devoted more of his energy to composing. He wrote two song cycles: Ein umgekehrter Wellenritt (D. Mayer) and Landgewinnung – nicht ganz 40 Versuche zur Gegenwart (U. Andersen). In October 2011 a duet for mezzo-soprano and baritone, Der Palmbaum, will be premièred.
David Parry ~ conductor
David Parry studied at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, London. He went on to study conducting with Sergiu Celibidache and began his career as a repetiteur at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, later becoming Chorus Master for the Touring Opera and assisting Sir John Pritchard both at Glyndebourne and at Belgian National Opera. He made his operatic debut with La Cenerentola for English Music Theatre. He was on the conducting staff of the Dortmund City Opera, and then joined the newly-formed Opera North as a resident conductor. In 1983 he was appointed Music Director of Opera 80, a post he held until 1987 when he left to develop a freelance career. He has also been Artistic Advisor to the Savoy Theatre Opera Company and was Artistic Advisor to Opera Rara 2005 – 2011. He is Artistic Associate at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.
He has appeared as guest conductor for leading British companies such as Glyndebourne Festival Opera Cosi fan tutte and Jonathan Dove’s Flight; English National Opera Le Comte Ory, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, The Rape of Lucretia, Ernani, La Vestale, Turk in Italy and Barber of Seville; Opera North Nabucco, Idomeneo, L’Elisir d’Amor, Le Compte Ory, Der Zwerg, I Pagliacci and Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio; and Garsington Opera La Cenerentola, Don Pasquale, La gazza ladra, Barber of Seville, L’Equivoco Stravagante and Il Turco in Italia. He conducted a new production of Madam Butterfly for English National Opera, directed by Anthony Minghella, to great critical acclaim, including an Olivier Award.
Foreign opera productions include the Spanish premiere of Peter Grimes, The Rakes Progress and Jenufa at the Teatro Lirico Nacional La Zarzuela Madrid, La Fille du Regiment, La Traviata and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Orviedo Festival, Lucia di Lammermoor in Murcia, Carmen in San Sebastian and Nixon in China for Greek National Opera. He conducted Tosca, Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio at the Hong Kong International Festival, Maria Stuarda and La Finta Gardiniera for Theatre Basel, and Lucia di Lammermoor for New Israeli Opera. More recently he has conducted Maria Stuarda for Stockholm Royal Opera, The Flying Dutchman for Portland Opera USA, Flight at the Nationale Reisopera, Don Giovanni at the Niedersachsische Staatstheater Hannover and Le Comte Ory and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Staatstheater Stuttgart.
His numerous opera recordings for Opera Rara and the series of classic repertoire in English for Chandos Records have been hailed by the critics, notably Rosomondo d’Inghilterra, L’Assedio di Calais, Emilia di Liverpool, Orazi e Curiazi and Il Crociato in Egitto for Opera Rara, and L’Elisir d’Amore, Don Pasquale, Tosca, Der Rosenkavalier, La Bohème, Il Trovatore, Faust and Carmen, for Chandos, to name a few.
In 1992 he was appointed founding Music Director of Almeida Opera where he has given the world premieres of Nigel Osborne’s Terrible Mouth, Kevin Volans’s The Man who Strides the Wind, Elena Firsova’s The Nightingale and the Rose and Ion by Param Vir. Other premieres he has given include Stephen Oliver’s Mario and the Magician at the Batignano Festival (Italy) and the UK premiere of Bruno Maderna’s Satiricon with Opera Factory.
David Parry regularly conducts leading orchestras in the UK and in Europe including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, English Chamber Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Madrid symphony orchestras.
Future plans include Caterina Cornaro for Opera Rara, La Pericole for Garsington Opera and Stravinsky in Geneva. He also gives concerts with the Philharmonia and John Tomlinson, English Chamber Orchestra, Brabants Orkest and at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.
Performance venues for the Brabant Philharmonic Orchestra include the Muziekcentrum Frits Philips in Eindhoven, Theater aan de Parade in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Concertzaal in Tilburg and the Chassé Theater in Breda. The orchestra enjoys a favourable international reputation that is the well-deserved result of several tours abroad. The orchestra was led by Marc Soustrot from 1996 through 2006; he highlighted the French repertoire with great success as well as carrying out many other projects. Alan Buribayev, a young conductor from Kazachstan, was chosen as Soustrot’s successor in 2007. The 2009-2010 season, the 60th of the orchestra’s existence, clearly demonstrates the influence of artistic advisor Jan Zekveld and provides a unique mixture of traditional with modern music. Alongside its symphonic concerts, the Brabant Philharmonic accompanies various opera performances, most frequently with Opera Zuid.
Brabant Philharmonic Orchestra
Performance venues for the Brabant Philharmonic Orchestra include the Muziekcentrum Frits Philips in Eindhoven, Theater aan de Parade in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Concertzaal in Tilburg and the Chassé Theater in Breda. The orchestra enjoys a favourable international reputation that is the well-deserved result of several tours abroad. The orchestra was led by Marc Soustrot from 1996 through 2006; he highlighted the French repertoire with great success as well as carrying out many other projects. Alan Buribayev, a young conductor from Kazachstan, was chosen as Soustrot’s successor in 2007. The concert programs clearly demonstrate the influence of artistic advisor Jan Zekveld and provide a unique mixture of traditional with modern music. Alongside its symphonic concerts, the Brabant Philharmonic accompanies various opera performances, this most frequently with Opera Zuid.
