Jac van Steen
Conductor Jac van Steen has been a fixture of the orchestral scene in his home country and has been active in Germany and Britain as well. He is also a noted educator.
Van Steen was born in 1956 in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. He attended the Brabant Conservatory in Tilburg, studying orchestral and choral conducting as well as music theory. By the age of 30, van Steen had already obtained an important professional position: he became the conductor and music director of the Nijmegen Bach Choir in 1986, remaining in that post until 1990. From 1989 to 1994, he served as the music director of the Dutch National Ballet. Since that time, van Steen has conducted virtually all of the significant symphony orchestras in the Netherlands, including the Residentie Orkest, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the country's major broadcast orchestras. With the Residentie Orkest, he was noted for championing contemporary music programming works by the likes of Iannis Xenakis, Olivier Messiaen, and Krzysztof Penderecki.
Van Steen also began to gain a positive reputation in Germany after serving as a guest conductor with the Bochum Symphony from 1992 to 1994. From 1997 to 2002, he was the chief conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony, and from 2002 to 2005, the chief conductor and general music director of the Staatskapelle Weimar and the associated Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, and also of the Musikkollegium Winterthur. Van Steen has gone on to conduct a variety of major German orchestras, including the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and the MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig. In Britain, he has led several major orchestras on a regular basis, including the BBC Symphony (making his debut with that group at the Proms in 2000), the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, and the Britten Sinfonia, with which he has made several recordings.
Van Steen has made more than 30 recordings with various orchestras. In the early 2000s, he made a number of recordings for the NMC label with the BBC Symphony, focusing on contemporary British music. He has also recorded for MDG, Somm, and other labels. His recordings on Somm have featured the Britten Sinfonia and include a 2020 release of music by Saint-Saëns and Henrique Oswald. Van Steen has been on the faculty of the Royal Conservatory in The Hague since 1992, teaching conducting.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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NMC Sampler No. 5: New Stock
Jac van Steen, London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by NMC Recordings on 1 Apr 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Love from a Stranger: 4 British Film Scores
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jac van Steen
Classical - Released by NMC Recordings on 1 Mar 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dvorák: Symphony No. 6
Sinfonieorchester Dortmund, Jac van Steen
Classical - Released by Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm (MDG) on 1 Jan 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
David Matthews: In the Dark Time, Op. 38 & Chaconne, Op. 43
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jac van Steen
Classical - Released by NMC Recordings on 1 May 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rachmaninov, Strauss & Dohnányi: Works for Piano & Orchestra
Valerie Tryon, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Jac van Steen
Classical - Released by SOMM Recordings on 1 Sep 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dutch Overtures
Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, Jac van Steen
Classical - Released by Donemus Musicians' Voice on 29 Sep 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5, Op. 64 & Hamlet, Op. 67
Sinfonieorchester Dortmund, Jac van Steen
Classical - Released by Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm (MDG) on 1 Dec 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Trumpet Renaissance
Jac van Steen, BBC National Orchestra Of Wales, Philippe Schartz
Concertos - Released by Chandos on 1 Nov 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Jost, C.: Phoenix Resurrexit [Opera]
Wendy Waller, Daniel Morgenroth, Weimar Deutsches Nationaltheater Opera Chorus, Weimar Staatskapelle, Jac van Steen
Opera - Released by Oehms Classics on 1 Jan 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo