René Jacobs
René Jacobs ( born October 30, 1946 in Ghent) is a Belgian conductor and countertenor.
Jacobs studied philology at the University of Ghent and at the same time took singing lessons with Louis Devos and Alfred Deller. Before turning himself entirely to music, he spent three years a teacher of Latin and Greek. In 1977 he founded the vocal ensemble Concerto Vocale Gent. He then worked several times as a conductor at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, whose artistic director he later took over.
Jacobs is known as a specialist in historical performance practice of early music and baroque opera. His most recent recordings of Mozart's operas are called revolutionary. He collaborates among others with the best orchestras and ensembles such as Concerto Köln, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Dutch Chamber Choir, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the RIAS Chamber Choir.
Since 1988, Jacobs conducted at the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. He also taught at the Schola Cantorum in Basel. 1997 to 2009 he was artistic director of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music.
As a conductor, he completed the instrument voices and decorating the vocals on several Baroque operas. For his many recordings on CDs and DVDs he received, among other things, the Classical Grammy Award in 2005 for Best Opera Recording with The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. For his contribution to international Telemann reception and the repertoire related to Telemann, he received the 2008 Georg Philipp Telemann Prize