Ivo Janssen, piano

Ivo Janssen (Venlo, 1963) studied the piano with Jan Wijn at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. From 1986 to 1990 he was awarded a number of prizes among which the Jacques Vonk Prize, which allowed him to continue his studies abroad with a.o. Robert Levin.

Since his debut in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1988 Ivo Janssen performs regularly in the Netherlands, and also in Germany, France, Italy, Australia and the USA. He has performed with musicians such as Heinrich Schiff, Nobuko Imai, Han de Vries and Charlotte Margiono.

For Globe, Ivo Janssen made a number of recordings including Brahms, Prokofiev, Chopin Preludes op. 28 and Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis, which the Hindemith Institute considered to be the best recording by far of this work.

In 1994 he started a series of concerts which will eventually include performances and recordings of the complete keyboard works by J.S. Bach. In February 1998 the first CD in this series was released, on his own label VOID Classics, which was especially started for this purpose. After recordings of the Goldberg Variations, Toccatas, French and English Suites, Partitas, the Well-tempered Clavier, and much more, the cycle was completed with a recording of The Art of Fugue in January 2007.

His toccata! project, that combines Bach’s toccatas with toccatas especially written by a number of contemporary Dutch composers such as Louis Andriessen, Michiel Borstlap, Leo Samama and Christina Viola Oorebeek was received with much enthusiasm, in the Netherlands as well as abroad.

Recently Ivo Janssen has been performing regularly with the writer and poet Anna Enquist. Poetry recited by her is combined with a.o. Chopin, Schumann, Brahms and Debussy. Five of these remarkable programmes have also been released on VOID Classics. Further recordings on the VOID Classics label will continue to be released of works by composers such as Brahms, Debussy, Prokofiev, and Simeon ten Holt.

Ivo Janssen (photo: Gert-Jan van Rooij)