Pieter-Jan Belder

Multi-instrumentalist Pieter-Jan Belder leads his Musica Amphion ensemble from the keyboard while maintaining an active solo career on harpsichord, fortepiano, organ, clavichord, and recorder. Born on January 19, 1966, in Capelle aan den IJssel in the southern Netherlands, he began training on multiple instruments early on. He studied recorder with Ricardo Kanji at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and harpsichord with Bob van Asperen at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, completing both programs in 1990. In 1993 he established the chamber ensemble Musica Amphion, and from that point onward he has balanced commitments to the group, his solo performances, and faculty duties at the Sweelinck Conservatory, which he joined in 1990. His first recording appeared in 1994, when he performed on recorder under Kanji’s direction for the album Georg Philipp Telemann: Baroque Orchestra Concerto '91. Prizes followed at the NDR Harpsichord Competition in Hamburg in 1997 and the Leipzig Bach Harpsichord Competition in 2000; these successes expanded his engagements, leading to continuo work with the Nederlandse Bachvereniging, the Collegium Vocale Gent, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Summer festivals have regularly featured him, among them the Leipzig Bach Festival and the Festival de Música Antiga in Barcelona. German and Dutch broadcasters have presented him often on both television and radio. Listeners know him chiefly through his extensive contributions, as soloist and with Musica Amphion, to the Brilliant label’s large-scale projects in the Netherlands. Between 2010 and 2013 he recorded the complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, comprising more than 300 pieces, for Brilliant; he also produced multi-disc surveys of works by Bach, Domenico Scarlatti (all 555 keyboard sonatas), Antonio Soler, and additional composers. With Musica Amphion he issued a complete account of Telemann’s Tafelmusik collection. In 2019 he recorded Bach’s The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, for Brilliant, and in 2023 he released William Byrd’s My Lady Nevells Booke on the same label; his discography by then exceeded 200 entries.