Henk Guittart
Henk Guittart (b.1953) studied viola with Jürgen Kussmaul and orchestral conducting with Louis Stotijn in The Hague, The Netherlands. In 1974 he founded the Schoenberg Ensemble, of which he was the violist and artistic director until 1990. During 33 years, from its founding in 1976 until the end of the quartet’s existence in 2009, he has been the violist of the Schoenberg Quartet; with this group he performed in many countries and recorded 35 CD's, including the complete works by Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, and Zemlinsky. The Schoenberg Quartet played about 100 concerts in the legendary Amsterdam Concertgebouw Hall.
During the 37 years of his life on stage Henk Guittart gave many world premières (including works by Schoenberg and Zemlinsky which he rediscovered) and collaborated with many composers, a.o. Louis Andriessen, Jonathan Berger, Luigi Dallapiccola, Jonathan Dove, Berthold Goldschmidt, Sofia Gubaidulina, Maurizio Kagel, Otto Ketting, Igor Markevitch, Luigi Nono, Steve Reich, Fredric Rzewski, Alfred Schnittke, Valentin Silvestrov, and Isang Yun.
From 1991 until 2001 he performed with oboist Han de Vries and pianist Ivo Janssen. They recorded original works for this unique combination by Klughardt, Hindemith, Loeffler, and Kahn for CD. As a chamber musician and viola-soloist Henk Guittart performed and recorded with The Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Deutsche Bachsolisten, Consortium Classicum, Stuttgart Piano Trio, and St.Lawrence String Quartet. All together he made more then 60 recordings.
In 1987 Henk Guittart was the first recipient of the “3-M Music-Laureate”, The Netherlands' most prestigious celebration of artists. He was also awarded the Lifelong Membership of the Friends of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Los Angeles, an honour which he shares with Pierre Boulez, Felix Galimir, and Eugene Lehner.
Henk Guittart edited a new publication of the Schoenberg String Trio op.45 and made arrangements for string ensembles of Schoenberg’s Wind Quintet op.26 and the Six little Piano Pieces op.19. He also made a version for viola and piano of Alban Berg’s Four Pieces for clarinet and piano op.5.
Guittart was head of the chamber music department of the Royal Conservatory in The Hague from 1979 until 1984, and in 1990/1991 he was appointed in the position of conductor/chamber-music coach at the Rotterdam Codarts Academy of Music and at the Maastricht Academy for Music. During the last decade he was a guest conductor and guest professor at the music academies in Budapest, Princeton, Los Angeles, Dresden, The Hague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Moscow, and Stanford.
As a conductor Henk Guittart has a wide range of repertoire, from the Viennese classics, and many works from the Second Viennese School, to brand-new music, including music-theatre and opera. As a conductor he recorded works by Kurt Weill, Jonathan Dove, and Jonathan Berger. He led the first Dutch performances of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and Bruckner's Seventh Symphony in the versions for chamber orchestra.
From the fall of 2006 Henk Guittart has served as artistic advisor of music programs at The Banff Centre for the Arts, where he also has been faculty during fall, winter, and summer programs. At the Banff Centre he coached countless young artists and ensembles and conducted works by John Adams, Jonathan Dove, Jonathan Berger, Morton Feldman, John Taverner, Van Bree, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Haydn, Dvorak, Strauss, Schoenberg, Berg, Debussy, Busoni. In 2010 Henk Guittart was appointed as Director of Music Programs, Fall & Winter, at The Banff Centre, Canada.
