Matthijs Mesdag

Matthijs Mesdag - after a childhood in a musical family - studied solo singing at the Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam with Margreet Honig. This was followed by lessons at the Britten Pears School for advanced musical Studies at Aldeburgh in the UK with Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Sarah Walker and Diane Forlano, and in Paris with American baritone David Pittman-Jennings. He was recently coached by Brian Masuda.

From its founding in 1992 until 2014, he was part of Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Choir, where he collaborated as soloist and ensemble singer on the recording of all Bach cantatas and as soloist on the CD recording of Mozart's Krönungsmesse and Vesperae Sollennes de Confessore.

As a soloist, his calendar is well filled with concerts in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France and Finland, where he can be heard on the great oratorios of Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn, cantatas and opera concerts. He also works with the choir of the National Opera, where he performed ensemble roles in Tea From Tan Dun, Those Soldiers By Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Raaff by Robin de Raaff and in the video production In Proximity.

As an opera singer, he performed roles such as Hans in the premiere production of A Job of our time By Wim de Ruijter, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas in Wiltshire and could recently be heard as Betto in Gianni Schicchi in the filming by Opera Spanga and Enrico in Lucia de Lammermoor.

He also performs song recitals for, among others, the Friends of the Song, in collaboration the pianists Vaughan Schlepp and Elizabeth Ford.