Philippe Herreweghe

Philippe Herreweghe (Ghent, 2 May 1947) is a Belgian conductor.

Herreweghe attended Sint-Barbaracollege in Ghent. He received his first piano instruction from his mother, a woman from the Ghent bourgeoisie. After his secondary education, he studied at the Conservatorium van Gent, where he took lessons with Marcel Gazelle (piano), Gabriël Verschraegen (organ) and Johan Huys (harpsichord). Subsequently, he studied medicine and specialized in psychiatry at Universiteit Gent.

In 1970, together with a group of fellow students, he founded the chamber choir Collegium Vocale Gent, with which he focused on music by Johann Sebastian Bach and other German baroque music. His approach was quickly noticed and musicians such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt asked Herreweghe to collaborate on their recordings of the collected Bach cantatas.

Herreweghe's authentic and rhetorical approach to baroque music received much acclaim and in 1977 he founded the ensemble La Chapelle Royale in Paris, with which he performed music from the French Golden Age.

From 1982 to 2002 he was artistic director of Festival de Saintes. During that period he created various ensembles, with which he brought a repertoire ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary music.