Paul Van Nevel (born 4 February 1946) is a Belgian conductor, musicologist and art historian. In 1971 he founded the

Huelgas Ensemble The Huelgas Ensemble is a Belgian early music group formed by the Flemish conductor Paul Van Nevel in 1971. The group's performance and extensive discography focuses on Renaissance polyphony. The name of the ensemble refers to a manuscript of pol ...

, a choir dedicated to

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Van Nevel is known for hunting out little known polyphonic medieval works to perform. He grew up in a musical family. From the age of 11 to 18 he used to sing four hours a day. His father played violin and encouraged his son to play every instrument in the house. While his father loved

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

, his son Paul favoured

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

. His nephew

Erik Van Nevel Erik Van Nevel (1956) is a Belgian singer and conductor. He is the nephew of Paul Van Nevel. He pursued instrumental and vocal studies at the Lemmensinstituut in Leuven, the Koninklijk Conservatorium (Brussels) and the Koninklijk Conservatorium ...

is also a choral conductor. From 1969 to 1971 he studied early music at the

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis The Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB) is a music academy and research institution located in Basel, Switzerland, that focuses on early music and historically informed performance. Faculty at the school have organized performing ensembles that have ...

in Switzerland. There he founded the Huelgas Ensemble, taking the name from the famous

Codex Las Huelgas The Codex Las Huelgas is a music manuscript or codex from ''c.'' 1300 which originated in and has remained in the Cistercian convent of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in Burgos, in northern Spain. The convent was a wealthy one which had conne ...

at the Cistercian monastery near Burgos which Van Nevel visited as a 24-year-old. He was able to spend two weeks studying the manuscript with the aid of a recommendation letter from the Belgian authorities. Van Nevel teaches at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and has been guest conductor of the

Collegium Vocale Gent Collegium Vocale Gent is a Belgian musical ensemble of vocalists and supporting instrumentalists, founded by Philippe Herreweghe. The group is dedicated to historically informed performance. Founding and program Collegium Vocale Gent was founded ...

, the

Netherlands Chamber Choir The Netherlands Chamber Choir (Dutch ''Nederlands Kamerkoor'') is a full-time and independent professional Dutch choir. It was founded in 1937 by a :nl:Felix de Nobel as the ''Chorus Pro Musica'' to perform Bach cantatas for the Dutch radio.

and the choir of the

Netherlands Bach Society The Netherlands Bach Society ( nl, Nederlandse Bachvereniging) is the oldest ensemble for Baroque music in the Netherlands, and possibly in the world. The ensemble was founded in 1921 in Naarden to perform Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach's ''St Matthew ...

. In 1994 he was awarded the Prix Paris in honorem of the Academy Charles Cros. His recordings with the Huelgas Ensemble received numerous awards including the

Diapason d'Or The Diapason d'Or (French for "Golden Tuning Fork") is a recommendation of outstanding (mostly) classical music recordings given by reviewers of '' Diapason'' magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the ...

in 1996 and the

MIDEM Midem is the acronym for Marché International du Disque et de l'Édition Musicale, which is organised annually in and around the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France. The trade show, organized by Reed MIDEM, a subsidiary of Re ...

Cannes Classical Award The International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) are music awards first awarded 6 April 2011. ICMA replace the Cannes Classical Awards (later called MIDEM Classical Awards) formerly awarded at MIDEM. The jury consists of music critics of magazines ...

for best choral music in 1998. Van Nevel is well known for his fondness for cigars, this interest finding musical outlet in ''The Art of the Cigar'' (2011, DHM). In 1994 he was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for stealing, in 1988, seven rare musical works in the Museo Bibliografico Musicale di Bologna.

Partial bibliography

* 1976 ''Polyfonie en ars subtilior''. Uitgeverij de Monte, Louvain, 75p * 1992 ''Nicolas Gombert et het avontuur van de Vlaamse Polyfonie'' (superseded by revised edition in French) * 2004 ''Nicolas Gombert et l'aventure de la polyphonie franco-flamande'' trans. Eva de Volder, Kargo Paris (marked "édition définitive" on frontispiece)

References

Living people 1946 births Belgian art historians Belgian conductors (music) Belgian male musicians Male conductors (music) Belgian musicologists Flemish classical musicians 21st-century conductors (music) 21st-century male musicians {{Belgium-historian-stub