Jan Caeyers
Jan Caeyers studied musicology at the University of Leuven, (PhD in 1985 on Jean-Philippe Rameau). At the same time he finished his musical studies at the Royal Conservatorium in Antwerp (flute) and at the Musikhochschule in Vienna (conducting). In 1985 he was appointed as a full-time professor in musicology in Leuven with the focus on late 18th- and early 19th-century music (history and analyses) and on historically-informed performance.
Since 2001 he is a part-time member of the musicology department. As a conductor Jan Caeyers was assistant to Claudio Abbado at the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, from 1993 to 1997, where he also had the opportunity to work alongside Bernard Haitink and Pierre Boulez. Until 2003 he was the director of the Beethoven Academy and since 2010 he is conducting Le Concert Olympique, the orchestra he created to bring authentic, relevant and referential performances of the music of Beethoven.
As a freelance conductor he has worked at the Opera in Stuttgart, and with orchestras in Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Florence and Prague. He has also conducted such leading European choral ensembles as the Arnold Schoenberg Chor in Vienna and the Nederlands Kamerkoor.
Jan Caeyers wrote down his in-depth views on Beethoven in his substantial volume entitled Beethoven. Der einsame Revolutionär, which was published in Dutch in 2009 and translated into German by C.H. Beck in Munich in 2012, with a series of translations expected to follow. He also made many recordings, mostly Beethoven and contemporaries.
Source: KU Leuve
