Jan Vandenhouwe

From July 2019 on, Jan Vandenhouwe is the artistic director of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (Antwerp and Ghent). After studying musicology at the universities of Leuven and Berlin, Jan Vandenhouwe started working for the Belgian newspaper De Standaard as a music and opera critic. From 2005 to 2008, he was dramaturg of the Opéra national de Paris and worked closely with the artistic director Gerard Mortier. In those years, he was also responsible for the artistic programme of l’Amphithéâtre Bastille. From 2009 to 2011, he was responsible for the concert programme (of classical and contemporary music) at Concertgebouw Brugge. Since then, he has worked as a freelance music dramaturg for various organisations, including Teatro Real (Madrid), Ensemble InterContemporain (Paris) and Klarafestival (Brussels).

He has also collaborated with directors such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (Così fan tutte in Paris, Mitten wir im Leben sind/Bach6Cellosuiten at the Ruhrtriennale, The Six Brandenburg Concertos at Volksbühne Berlin), Alain Platel (C(H)ŒURS in Madrid, nicht schlafen at the Ruhrtriennale), Ivo van Hove (Macbeth in Lyon, Brokeback Mountain in Madrid, Salome in Amsterdam, Boris Godunov and Don Giovanni in Paris) and Johan Simons (Fidelio in Paris, Boris Godunov in Madrid, Das Rheingold and Alceste at the Ruhrtriennale). From 2015 till 2017 he was Executive Dramaturg (Chefdramaturg) at the Ruhrtriennale.

foto: Filip Van Roe