KOEN KESSELS
Conductor

Koen Kessels studied at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire of Music in Antwerp. Subsequently, he worked at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels (1984 -1987) and as assistant conductor at the Flanders Opera (1990-1994)

He made his debut in Antwerp with the Royal Ballet of Flanders with Cinderella. He was re-invited for Giselle, La Fille Mal Gardée and La Bayadère in Belgium and on tour (Belfast, Edinburgh, Shangaï). The Swan Lake production (Jan Fabre) at the Edinburgh Festival was awarded the Herald Tribune Award.

In March 1999 he founded HERMESensemble specialised in contemporary music. He collaborated with composers including Luc Ferrari and Kaija Saariaho.

At the invitation of the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and Gerard Mortier, he worked with Kent Nagano on the world premiere of l’Amour de Loin at the Salzburger Festspiele 2000.

Koen Kessels conducted Le Nozze de Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Il Barbiere di Seviglia, Don Pasquale, Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Fledermaus, Carmen, La Traviata,Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, Nabucco, Aïda, Requiem Verdi, La Bohème, Tosca, The Rape of Lucrétia, Albert Herring, The Lighthouse, Kullervo with internationally renowned companies and orchestras.

The Paris Opera invited him to conduct Le Parc in September 2005 at Palais Garnier and Sadler’s Wells London. As a result of this succesful debut, he has been re-invited for several productions (Coppelia, Proust, Cinderella, Hurlevent) with l’Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris for the upcoming seasons including a tour to Japan in 2008.

In 2008 Koen Kessels makes his debut at La Monnaie Brussels with the world première of Pierre Bartholomée’s opera La Lumière d’Antigone and at Covent Garden with the Royal Ballet with The Nutcracker.
At the Flanders Opera, Antwerp, he conducted the world première of Luc Van Hove’s opera La Strada.

Koen Kessels is music director of Zomeropera Alden Biesen (Belgium), artistic director of HERMESensemble, guest conductor at The National Opera Sofia and member of the artistic direction at the Antwerp Music Conservatoire.