Conductor and double bassist from Pretoria who relocated to The Netherlands at twenty-six years of age and became a member of the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Other groups with whom he has worked include the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Podlaska Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Rotterdam, the State Philharmonic Orchestra Kislovodsk, and the WDR Rundfunkorchester Koln.
He was the chief conductor of the State Philharmonic Orchestra in Kislovodsk, Russia, from 2005 to 2009. For his efforts, he was honoured with an award from the Ministry of Culture.
He has also received raves for his recordings, such as Beethovenfest, Beethoven’s Oboe Concerto, Grieg: Holberg Suite; Dvorak: Serenade for Strings; Elgar: Serenade for Strings, Joaquin Rodrigo: Katona Twins, Karl Amadeus Hartmann und das Streichquartett, Shostakovich: The Barshai Arrangements, and Shostakovich: The 7th Symphony.
He has accompanied many soloists, including Ronald Brautigam, Wilke te Brummelstroete, Daniel Hope, Janine Jansen, John-Edward Kelly, Tania Kross, Min-Jin Kym, Evgeni Mikhailov, Graf Mourja, Boris Petruchansky, Sasha Rozhdestvensky, Benjamin Schmid, and Quirine Viersen.
In June 2009, he conducted Sir Edward Elgar’s “Serenade for Strings” and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence” at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He led the WDR Rundfunkorchester Koln in a concert of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 1” at the Festival van Zeeuwsch Vlaanderen in October 2009.
In January 2010, he directed the Podlaska Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra in their rendering of Antonin Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 8” in Bialystok, Poland. He and Sinfonia Rotterdam presented Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Symphony no. 64” (“Tempora Mutantur”) at the Hoflaankerk in March 2010. On 21st August 2010, he wielded the baton at the 39th Youth Music Festival in the Artscape Theatre.
In the last decade he has conducted numerous orchestras through the world including debuts with the Bochumer Symphoniker and the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2017 he was involved in a tour of South America with the Russian National Orchestra.
Here he is conducting the Rotterdam Sinfonia and Laurens Collegium in De Doelen in Mozart’s “Requiem”…
Sources:
- http://www.conradvanalphen.com/home/
- http://www.blueorchid.de/uk/conrad_van_alphen/index.php
- https://www.sinfoniarotterdam.nl/en/rotterdams-dynamic-chamber-orchestra/dirigent-conrad-alphen/
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/2483420-Conrad-van-Alphen
- http://www.allmusic.com/artist/conrad-van-alphen-mn0002228024/credits
- http://whatsonsa.co.za/news/index.php/magazine-member-blogs/item/101-western-cape-youth-music-festival-2010.html?print=1&tmpl=component