Robert Gilchrist
The Dutch composer, harpsichordist and conductor, Professor Hendrik Bouman, is one of the most innovative specialists in the field of early music. He composes in the historical idioms of the 17th and 18th centuries with over 170 completed compositions to date.
Bouman appeared on the world stage in the latter half of the 1970s as the principal harpsichordist at the heart of the young ensemble Musica Antiqua Koln. In 1983 he moved to Quebec to pursue his career as a soloist and conductor.
While in Canada Bouman founded the period orchestra Les Nations de Montréal and in 1987 he directed Les Nations and the Opera Atelier of Laval University in a three-hour live broadcast on Radio Canada. The program featured the 20th-century world premiere of Lully’s opera Amadis, which was subsequently aired in Europe.
During a concert tour of India, with its ancient and uninterrupted musical and spiritual tradition, Bouman determined to approach the European musical heritage of the Baroque era not as a closed book but rather as one still being written.
In 1993 he launched his career on the world stage as a Baroque composer, doing what all composers did in the 17th and 18th centuries – composing in the musical language that he ‘speaks’ and understands.
He points out that more Baroque composers have emerged since he began in 1993, thereby gradually removing an unspoken taboo. After premiering his music in Montréal he recorded solo compositions for harpsichord and piano on his double CD Notebook for Anna I & II, which won the Canadian composers’ SOCAN Foundation award. With more than 170 compositions under his belt, including quartets, sonatas, symphonies and baroque theatre music Bouman has proved that Baroque Nouveau has definite appeal.
Hendrik Bouman is the first known composer and performer of baroque music in two centuries to design and build the harpsichords he plays at concerts and when recording. Today he lives in France with his wife, Anna.