Paul van Nevel
(c) Martina Simkovicova

After a career spanning over 55 years, 79-year old conductor Paul Van Nevel will gradually handover the direction of the Huelgas Ensemble to German tenor Achim Schulz.

Paul Van Nevel is the artistic director of the Huelgas Ensemble, which he founded in 1971 as an extension of his activities at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He is known as a pioneer and figurehead for European polyphony from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.

The name of the ensemble refers to the Cistercian monastery of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in the west of Burgos, where the young musicologist traveled as a 24-year-old with a letter of recommendation from Belgian authorities. During his two-week stay in this monastery, he had the opportunity to study the centuries-old scores archived here.

Achim Schulz grew up in Munich (Germany). He successfully completed his studies for full-time church music as well as organ, harpsichord and choral conducting with diplomas, and then began his solo singing studies as a tenor at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Conservatory/High School of Music Academy in Basel (Switzerland).

He completed his solo singing studies with a teaching diploma and concert diploma with distinction and continued his studies with Hans Hotter and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. He has devoted himself extensively to concert singing, particularly as a soloist, for example as an evangelist in Bach’s Passions, and enthusiastically sang lieder.

He is a member of the Huelgas Ensemble and the ensemble Cinquecento Renaissance Vokal (Vienna).