Gunther Vandeven (Counter-tenor)

Born: Leuven, Belgium

The Belgian counter-tenor, Gunther Vandeven, joined the boys’ choir Koristen van Keizersberg at the age of 7 in his home town of Leuven. He started his musical education at the Stedelijk Conservatorium van Leuven where he studied flute with Esther Ursem and singing with Lieven Termont. In 2002, he completed his Master of Music degree at the Lemmens Institute, studying singing with Lieve Vanhaverbeke and Jan Caals, and in 2004 he finished a post-graduate diploma in singing at the same institute. In 2006, Gunther received an opera diploma from De Nieuwe Opera Academie in Holland studying with Margreet Honig and Mariëtte Nollen. Additional studies include work with Andreas Scholl and master-classes with Michael Chance, Martyn Hill, Axel Everaert, Alexander Oliver, Mark Tucker, Ann Murray and Patricia MacMahon.

Gunther Vandeven gives concerts and records regularly with several well-known ensembles, including Capilla Flamenca, Collegium Vocale Gent, Currende, Il Fondamento, Ex Tempore, Zefiro Torna, The Norwegian Soloist Choir and the Blindman Saxophone Quartet. As a soloist, he has been heard on Belgian and Norwegian radio, and was also seen on the French-German TV-channel Arte in a broadcast of the world-renowned music & dance production ‘FOI’ with Capilla Flamenca and Les Ballets C de la B.

Opera credits include Oberon in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and the Sorceress in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, a role he has frequently performed. He has been heard as a soloist in such works as Bononcini’s La Maddalena a' piedi di Cristo, J.S. Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243), St. John Passion (BWV 245), Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248) and B minor Mass (BWV 232), Gottfried August Homilius’s Matthäus-Passion, Mozart's Requiem, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah and Utrecht Te Deum, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat mater and Salve regina, and the Gloria and Stabat mater of Antonio Vivaldi.

Source: Gunther Vandeven Page at Angelfire
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (November 2009)

Recordings of Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works

Conductor

As

Works

Toralf Hildebrandt

Alto

BWV 61

Links to other Sites

Gunther Vandeven (Angelfire)

Countertenor Gunther Vandeven (Impresariaat Tineke Ouwendijk) [Dutch]