Peter Van Heyghen – photo by Bart Vandewege
Peter Van Heyghen was trained as a recorder player and a singer at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent (Belgium). Through the years he developed into an internationally acknowledged specialist in the field of historical performance practice of music between roughly 1500 and 1800. He performs worldwide as a soloist, with the recorder consort Mezzaluna, with the chamber music ensemble More Maiorum, as a singer with the Dutch vocal Renaissance ensemble Cappella Pratensis, and as a conductor of the Brussels Baroque orchestra Il Gardellino and other ensembles and orchestras throughout Europe, South America, the United States and Japan. He is a regularly invited guest at the early music festivals of Bruges, Antwerp, Utrecht, Maastricht, and Regensburg among others.
In 2005 he was selected as the “festival star” of the Bruges Musica Antiqua festival by the Flemish radio channel Klara. Between 2007 and 2009 his ensembles were in residence at the Centre for Early Music Augustinus in Antwerp. He has recorded for the labels Passacaille, Eufoda, Accent, Opus 111, Klara and Ramée.
Peter Van Heyghen is also active as a researcher, publicist and teacher. He is professor of Historical Performance Practice at the Early Music Departments of the Royal Conservatories in Brussels and The Hague, and at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Furthermore, he is regularly invited to give masterclasses, lectures and conduct workshops throughout the world.
