La Chapelle des Minimes :: Next Concert

Jacques Vanherenthals

Jacques Vanherenthals began his musical career as contrabassist at the Antwerp Opera (now Flemish Opera) in 1969. From 1973 until 1988 he was at the RTBF Symphony Orchestra. In 1988 he became director of the Academy of Nivelles and the next year director of the Academy of Music, Dance and Spoken Arts of Forest, where he headed the educational team until June 2010. He also held the post of instructor in chamber music from 1984 to 2006 at the Brussels Conservatory.

Along with his activities as a virtuoso player, he wrote numerous works for the contrabass and in 1982 created the Brussels Contrabass Quartet, with which for ten years he played over three hundred concerts for the Jeunesses Musicales and many others in Louisiana, Québec, Ontario, France, Italy and of course Belgium.

From 1987 to 2005 he was artistic director and principal conductor of La Chapelle des Minimes, where he conducted more than 160 cantatas as well as the great choral works of J. S. Bach. He is also the founder and artistic director of the ENSEMBLE ORCHESTRAL DE BRUXELLES which he created in 1994 with fellow-bassist Eric Demesmaeker and musicologist Richard Dehon.

Jacques Vanherenthals has collaborated with major soloists such as José Van Dam, François-René Duchable, Aga Winska, Julia Migenes, Alain Carré, Marie Hallinck, Didier Poskin, Lorenzo Gatto, the Cadre Noir de Saumur, but also with many, many other musicians who while less well-known are all gifted with the true soul of the artist.