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“if people knew how good the conductor is they’d be flocking to join the choir”

JanJoost van Elburg is a trained singer and choral conductor. His busy schedule includes conducting choirs in Britain and the Netherlands, singing, teaching and lecturing. Rehearsals with JanJoost are challenging, stimulating and fun.

JanJoost finished his studies in choral conducting in 1991. He studied with Barend Schuurman, one of the leading conducting teachers in Holland, at the Conservatory of Rotterdam. He also studied singing with Jelle Drayer of the Dutch Chamber Choir, Margreet Honig, Luciënne Bouwman, and with Ghislaine Morgan in England.

As well as being musical director the RBC, JanJoost also conducts the Oxford-based Bartholomew Consort, the Renaissance Singers of London and The Lelikoor of Amsterdam. He is also vocal coach of COQU (Utrecht) and for Schola at Worth Abbey.

He is a teacher of ensemble technique and training, singing, theory and choral conducting, and teaches on a regular basis at the Dutch School of Arts. As a singer he has performed with a wide variety of ensembles including the Tallis Scholars, the Dutch Broadcast Choir, Capella Pratensis, Capella Coloniensis in Cologne, and his own ensemble, Descant.

He gives workshops and lectures at home and abroad, on such subjects as Renaissance and Baroque music, madrigals, Flemish polyphony, Tudor music and choral conducting, and is much in demand as a tutor at conservatoires throughout Europe (Bulgaria, Italy, The Netherlands); at Lacock summer schools (England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Scotland and Cyprus) and the Tallis Scholars Summer Schools (TSSS). In 2004 he presided over the jury at the Dutch National Choral Competition.

JanJoost is the initiator and principal tutor of the highly successful DESCANT International Choral Conductors’ Course in Amsterdam.

Conductor - JanJoost van Elburg

“if people knew how good the conductor is they’d be flocking to join the choir”