Biography

The Josquin Capella was formed in 1994 by students of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and singers from cologne. Today, the members of the vocal ensemble come together from many European countries to sing in concerts and for recordings. From the beginning, the ensemble‘s goal as been to sing the great music of the high Renaissance – the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. It’s repertoire embraces the masses and motets fo Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin and Gombert, as well as the rich treasure of Italian and German madrigals. Much of the sacred music of the Renaissance is comprehensible only when seen in its original liturgical context. One of the ensemble’s concerns is therefore to compile programmes which eludicate the history and liturgy of the region. Several radio recordings have been made for the Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Deutschlandfunk. The critics have been unanimous in their praise of the ensemble’s high musical culture. In France the ensemble received the prestigious Diapason d’or for its Stoltzer CD. The Josquin Capella has received invitations to Antwerp and Ghent for the Flanders Festival, to Fontevraud and Le Thoronet, and to the European Church Music Festival in Schwäbisch Gmünd. Its most recent productions with the WDR have included a disc featuring sacred works from the Sistine Chapel by Jacques Arcadelt released on cpo and a recording of works by Ludwig Senfl. The Aachen Cathedral Chapter has released a documentation of the Konzert der Engel im Aachener Dom (Concert of the Angels in the Aachen Cathedral) as a DVD.

Meinolf Brüser was already active as a church musician during his youth. He then went on to study jurisprudence in Cologne, at which time he began appearing with various early music ensembles in the city. He went on to study church music and early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, there also attending the organ class of Jean-Claude Zehnder and receiving tuition in conducting from Hans-Martin Linde. He then began practising law in Berlin but never lost his connection with the Rhineland, where in 1996 he founded the Rhein-Renaissance Festival – “Early Music between Rhine and Maas” – which in the intervening years has brought celebrated early music performers to historical venues in the Rhineland. He directs the Josquin Capella and has also established himself as a conductor of Baroque oratorios.