Gijs Leenaars

»the choir’s impressive young principal conductor« (The New York Times)

Principal Conductor

Gijs Leenaars has served as Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rundfunkchor Berlin since the 2015–16 season. Since then, he has impressed audiences through collaborations with outstanding conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Gijs Leenaars conducts cross-genre concert performances such as »human requiem« and »LUTHER dancing with the gods« and oversees recordings of a cappella repertoire and choral symphonic works. In the 2019/20 season, he will lead the grand Festival of Choral Cultures and the transdisciplinary project »TIME TRAVELLERS.« Additionally, on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he will conduct Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a work that will also be released on CD in this instrumentation.

Born in Nijmegen in 1978, this Dutch conductor is considered one of the most interesting choral conductors of the younger generation. He studied piano, choral and orchestral conducting, and voice in Nijmegen and Amsterdam. Immediately after graduating, he began collaborating with the Netherlands Radio Choir in Hilversum. From 2012 to 2015, he served as the ensemble’s principal conductor, working in that capacity with Mariss Jansons, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Bernard Haitink. He is also a regular guest conductor with Collegium Vocale Gent, Cappella Amsterdam, and the Nederlands Kamerkoor. In addition, he has worked with orchestras such as the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Residentie Orkest The Hague, and the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino.

The performance of contemporary music is a particular focus for him. Gijs Leenaars conducted the Dutch premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s “Vigilia,” and for the complete recording of Kurtág’s works under Reinbert de Leeuw, he prepared the choral works with the Netherlands Radio Choir. In his program selections, he combines the classical repertoire with rarely heard works from the choral repertoire.