JANSSENS, Robert

Honorary Professor of Orchestra Conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Honorary Director of the Royal Conservatory of Mons and the Brussels Music Academy, musical adviser to the capital of Europe where he was born, Robert JANSSENS is also the permanent conductor of the Brussels Symphonic Ensemble.

Having followed teacher training and armed with diplomas from the Royal Conservatories of Liege and Brussels, this artist began his teaching career at the Ecole Normale of the City of Brussels.

His path as a professional musician has placed him at the head of symphony, opera, and ballet orchestras, in Belgium, but also in Switzerland, in Washington, Colorado, Montreal, Venezuela, Colombia, Novosibirsk, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, at the Muzikverein in Vienna, in Turkey, Japan, Italy, Greece, and China...

Through his teaching, Robert Janssens gives students a training that introduces them to the difficult and intransigent paths of Beauty. Thanks to public concerts with his orchestra class at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, as well as numerous musical internships, he brings these young people into direct contact with the realities of their chosen profession.

In addition to conducting concerts, Robert Janssens composes works for large symphony orchestras (concertos, cantatas, operas), chamber music and ballet music, music for soloists, sound effects for theatre... and even “easy listening” music. His writing seduces other composers who seek him out in order to perfect their own composition technique.

He is titleholder of the Irène FUERISON Prize, awarded for composition by the Royal Academy of Belgium, the Jadot Prize, awarded by the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, the Symphony Orchestra Trophy awarded by the State of Izmir, as well as an honorary diploma from SABAM.

He excels in writing for the voice, both choral works and works for soloists. One can find the score for “La Messe des Artistes, dite de St François” on the shelves of the Sorbonne, having been chosen and brilliantly defended by François Gildas TUAL in his master’s thesis. This mass, performed in 1982 in Brussels, then in Avignon, was brought out on vinyl record and sold 5,000 copies.

Robert Janssens has also written three major works: two concerti (one for piano and one for violoncello), and one Requiem, performed to wide public acclaim in 2004 at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels with a standing ovation.

For several years now, Robert Janssens has participated in the administration of committees within SABAM.

As an orchestra conductor, Robert Janssens has been able to perform and even play for the first time many works by numerous Belgian composers. He has frequently exercised this privilege in Belgium, but also abroad. In this way he has left a souvenir of high quality Belgian works in the Muzikverein in Vienna, in the Mégaron Musikis in Athens, in Saint Petersburg and many other places.

His thirty years at the head of the Academy of Arts of the City of Brussels, and as Professor of Orchestra Conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, have enabled him to systematically place at least one composition by a Belgian artist on the programme of each concert or competition.

The founder and president of the International Summer Festival of Brussels, Robert Janssens ensures a good number of Belgian musical compositions are featured on the concert programme, pieces that either he conducts or has conducted or performed by foreign artists.

Lastly, he actively campaigns for greater recognition of contemporary Belgian artists within various associations that defend the rights of composers.

[© CeBeDeM, 2007]

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