PIETER-JAN BELDER
klavecimbel / fortepiano / orgel / dirigent
Pieter-Jan Belder studied recorder with Ricardo Kanji at the Royal Conservatium of The Hague, and harpsichord with Bob van Asperen at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatorium.
He has persued a flourishing career as harpsichordist, clavichord player, organist, forte-pianist and recorder player. He has appeared at many international festivals, such as the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, the Berlin Musikfest, the Festival van Vlaanderen, the Festival Potsdam Sans Souci, Bremen Musikfest and the Leipzig Bachfest.
Belder has also recorded several orchestral and chamber-music productions with Musica Amphion: Telemann’s Tafelmusik, the complete works of Corelli, Bach’s Brandenburg concertos, Bach’s concertos for 2, 3 & 4 harpsichords, and the complete chamber music of Purcell.
Pieter-Jan Belder is currently working on recordings of works by Handel, C.P.E. Bach, The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and J.S. Bach in a series called Bach in Context. This series is in corporation with Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam on the label Etcetera.
Belder’s new recording of Bach’s Goldbergvariations has recently been released on Brilliant Classics. He is currently working as a duopartner with violinist Rie Kimura with whom he recorded the complete violin works by C.P.E. Bach.
last updated: 4 July 2017
He regularly plays solo recitals, and is also very much in demand as a continuo player with such ensembles as the, The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Camarata Trajectina, Bach Collegium Japan, Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Bach Society, and has been working with conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, Jos van Veldhoven and Philippe Herreweghe, amongst others. Belder has also accompanied soloists such as Johannette Zomer, Nico van der Meel, Harry van der Kamp, Sigiswald Kuijken, Rémy Baudet and Wilbert Hazelzet. Belder conducts his own ensemble Musica Amphion.
In 1997 Pieter-Jan Belder was awarded the third prize at the Hamburg NDR Music Prize harpsichord competition. In 2000 he was winner of the Leipzig Bach harpsichord competition. In 2005 he made his debut as a conductor in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and was since then regularly conducting productions with soloists such as Michael Chance and Sarah Connolly (Dido & Aeneas) and the choir Collegium Vocale Gent .
He has made over 130 CD recordings, most of them solo and chamber music productions. Since 1999 Belder has worked on his integral recording of the Scarlatti keyboard sonatas, which was released in 2007. Since then he has recorded Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier along with the complete harpsichord works by Rameau and Soler. Recently Brilliant released two volumes with harpsichord music from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and a recording of the Kenner und Liebhaber series by C.P.E. Bach, recorded on the fortepiano and the clavichord.
