Historical Performance Practice

Historical violin
Historical viola
Historical cello
Historical basson/dulciaan
Historical trombone/sackbut
Historical oboe
Harpsichord/clavichord
Viola da gamba/violone
Traverso/Historical flutes
Recorder
Orgel
Fortepiano

Course leader
Cécile Rongen

Arranging
Willem van Merwijk

Baroque cello and classical cello
Victor Garcia Garcia

Baroque oboe
Daniël Lanthier (guest teacher)

Baroque trombone
Bram Peeters (guest teacher)

Baroque violin and baroque viola
Antoinette Lohmann (core teacher)

Basso continuo
Mary Sayre

Carillion
Tommy van Doorn
Christiaan Winter

Chamber music
Siebe Henstra
Heiko ter Schegget

Choir direction and choir practicum
Rob Vermeulen

Correpetition
Artem Belogurov
Jörn Boysen

Fortepiano
Arlem Belogurov

Harpsichord and clavichord
Siebe Henstra

Historical documentation
Antoinette Lohmann (core teacher)

Historical flutes/traverso
Doretthe Janssens

Musician's health
Criss Taylor

Musical history
Arnoud Heerings

Musical theory
Duco Burgers
Arnoud Heerings
Daan van den Hurk (kerndocent)
Anne-Maartje Lemereis
Mark Lippe
Rens Tienstra

Oboe
Daniel Lanthier (guest teacher)

Orchestra practicum
Antoinette Lohmann

Organ
Laurens de Man
Reitze Smits

Recorder
Robert de Bree
Heiko ter Schegget

Viola da gamba/violone
Joshua Cheatham

Take a look at the complete list of lecturers at HKU Utrechts Conservatorium

Artem Belogurov is equally at home at the modern piano, harpsichord, clavichord and the many varieties of historical pianos. His repertoire ranges through four centuries of solo, concerto and chamber repertoire. Artem’s recent performances include concerto appearances with Concerto Köln in Lincoln Center, New York and at the Library of Congress, Washington as well as with Camerata RCO in Sofia, Bulgaria. As a soloist and chamber musician, duo partner with cellist Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde and founding member of ensemble Postscript, Artem has performed at a number of international festivals, among them Festival Montréal Baroque, Festival Royaumont, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Musica Antiqua Brugge, and in such venues as Wigmore Hall, Jordan Hall, Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, and Tivoli Vredenburg. He is actively interested in research, particularly relating to Romantic performance practice, and enjoys experimenting with and reviving forgotten expressive devices. He has recorded for BIS, Piano Classics, Berlin Classics, Challenge Classics and TRPTK. To learn more about him and his projects, please visit artembelogurovmusic.com, postscriptensemble.com en romanticlab.com.

Robert de Bree is at home in many fields, as a teacher, recorder player, oboist, improviser and researcher. In addition to work with top early music ensembles, such as the English Baroque Soloists, Ensemble Pygmalion, L'Arpeggiata, AKAMUS & Academy of Ancient Music, Robert also explores unusual paths with newer ensembles, such as Wigmore Hall “Baroque ensemble in residence” Solomon's Knot (oratorios and cantatas without a conductor, semiscene, by heart), The Scroll Ensemble (full improvised concerts in styles from medieval to modern, with theatrical elements, audience interaction and other art forms) and OHM with its own compositions and arrangements. A creator in his own right, Robert also performs solo performances, such as his “Opera by the Hearth,” where original, 18th-century opera arrangements for block flute solo come together with self-written diary texts based on true-life characters and events, his own compositions and projected paintings from the era. Robert teaches historical improvisation at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and gives workshops in this field throughout Europe. Research in this field also manifests itself in lecturing and publishing articles (Early Music America, ERTA UK, Chigiana Journal International Conference, etc.). On The Scroll Ensemble YouTube channel, Robert makes improvisation accessible to all with tutorials, history and interviews.

Victor Garcia Garcia is a Spanish cellist specialized in historical performance. He enjoys a varied and international musical career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. Alongside his activities as a performer, his interest towards research led him to persue a doctoral degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, focusing on the performance practice of cellist that lived around Beethoven. Victor won the Second Prize at the Witold Lutoslawski Cello Competition in Warsaw. As a member of the Duo Auxesis and the ensemble Ayres Extemporae where he plays the violoncello piccolo, he is a prizewinner at the Händel Competition in Göttingen, the Biagio Marini competition and the SMADE. Victor was also Artist in Residence in Schloss Weissenbrunn in 2022. He regularly performs with European ensembles in the early music scene, such as the Balthasar Neumann Orchestra, Baroque Orchestra of Sevilla, Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Dunedin Consort, Millenium Orchestra or Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. He is the artistic director of the Festival Impulso in La Palma (Spain).

Doretthe Janssens studied modern flute and traverso at the Utrecht Conservatory, where she is currently principal study teacher in historical flutes. She also has a thriving teaching practice at home, with amateur flutists of all ages and from all over the country. Doretthe has written a method for the traverso, which has been published in Dutch, English and German. Doretthe plays regularly in various European orchestras and ensembles, and she is a regular member of the baroque orchestra of the Netherlands Bach Society. She has also recently started working part-time as a coordinator in a hospice.

Antoinette Lohmann has been active in a variety of musical areas. As a freelance player, Antoinette has performed and recorded with many orchestras and ensembles all over the world. Currently her repertoire extends from the early 17th to the 21st century, always performed from a historically informed perspective. She has a special interest in unusual instruments such as the viola d'amore, the violino piccolo and their repertoire. She also has a particular fascination with folk elements found in classical music. In recent years Antoinette has focussed primarily on chamber music, with special emphasis on Dutch repertoire. She has recorded the complete sonatas for piano and violin by Joseph Martin Kraus and Margarethe Danzi, bassoon quartets by Franz Danzi and Krommer, chamber music works by Belle van Zuylen and 17th-century repertoire from the Netherlands. Antoinette teaches principal study baroque violin and viola at the Utrechts Conservatorium and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. She regularly teaches as a guest lecturer at conservatories throughout the world.

Saxophonist / composer / arranger Willem van Merwijk (Bemmel, The Netherlands, 1960) is a musical jack-of-all-trades. He is co-founder of the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet and played the baritone saxophone in this group from 1982 till 2014. He is also a member of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble since 1990 and regularly performing, composing and arranging for this group. Guillermo Lago (1960) is van Merwijk's composing alter ego. His work is being performed and recorded world-wide. ‘Ciudades’ by his hand for saxophone quartet has become a repertoire piece for the ensemble. He is teaching at both the 'Conservatorium van Utrecht' and the 'Conservatorium van Amsterdam’.

Crissman Taylor has been teaching at the Utrecht Conservatory since 1996 where she runs the Music Mind and Body Program. Previous to her studies at the HKU in voice (bachelors/masters) she studied violin in New York. In between conservatory studies, she gained a bachelor’s in sociology from Harvard University and qualified to teach the Alexander Technique in 1989. She has had a long performance career as classical mezzo-soprano and violinist.

Her educational development and research focuses interdisciplinary collaborations to enhance the curriculum. This includes work with medical and psychology professionals, the narrative medicine department of Utrecht Medical Center (UMC), and dance and movement research with Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She conducted extensive research into the challenges of violin and viola playing, developing the Violinist in Balance method, which combines Alexander re-education with custom made chin rest and shoulder rests, using 3-D printing technology. She is a founding member of Artist in Balance, an interdisciplinary performance educational institute.

Christiaan Winter (*1967) studied church music, organ, choral conducting and carillon at the various professional music colleges of the HKU. He was a programmer for NCRV radio and church musician of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam. Currently he is city carillonneur of Alkmaar, village carillonist of De Rijp, lecturer at the HKU/Netherlands Carillon School, president of Carillon Center of the Netherlands and the Royal Dutch Carillon Society, editor of the Yearbook of Carillon and Bell Culture in the Low Countries and conductor of vocal ensemble Duodektet in Amsterdam. In May 2023, he will receive his doctorate from VU University Amsterdam for a study on the work of church musician and composer Willem Vogel. Christiaan Winter is also a freelance organist, singer and composer.

After you apply via Studielink, you will receive the questionnaire within a few working days.

If you live in the Netherlands, the theoretical exam will take place at the location of the Utrechts Conservatorium. If you live outside the Netherlands, your theoretical exam will take place online. The exam will take approximately 30 minutes. It consists of a general music theory test and a listening comprehension test.

Entrance Requirements (pdf)

Below you will find examples of the theory exam:
Example theory test (pdf)
Answers theory test (pdf)
Example listening test (pdf)
Solfège (pdf)

The practice admission will be between 31 March and 11 April 2025 and will take place live at the conservatory. For the practical entrance exam, you need to prepare an assignment in advance.

Below the different assignments per instrument.

Bassoon
Cello
Harpsichord
Oboe
Recorder
Traverso
Trombone
Viola
Violin

The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science anually sets the statutory tuition fees. The statutory rate applies only to students from the Netherlands, another country in the European Economic Area (EEA*), Switzerland or Suriname, and students who meet the nationality criteria of the Dutch Student Finance Act (WSF 2000).

(* EEA countries comprise the European Union, Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein).

HKU sets the institutional tuition fees on the basis of the statutory rate. Students who have already completed a course in higher education and students from outside the EEA usually pay a higher rate.

Partly as a result of legal changes, the rate for institutional tuition fees for non-EEA students may rise considerably in the coming years.

Read the information on the study costs page.