Reinoud Van Mechelen
© Senne Van der Ven
About
Reinoud Van Mechelen was born in 1987 in Leuwen and became soon a member of the childrens' choir Clari Cantuli. In 2005 he took his first singing lessons with Anne Mertens and Nicolas Achten. A year later he was admitted in the Conservatoire Royal in Brussels in the class of Lena Lootens. After having obtained his bachelor degree he continued his studies with Dina Grossberger and completed his master studies in 2012. In the same time he attended masterclasses with Greta De Reyghere, Isabelle Desrochers, Frédérick Haas, Claire Lefilliâtre, Alain Buet, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, François-Nicolas Geslot and Howard Crook.
In 2007 he took part in the Académie Baroque Européenne in Ambronay and performed there Plutus in Le Carnaval et la Folie by Destouches under the baton of Hervé Niquet. From 2011 to 2013 he was a member of the "Jardin des Voix" of William Christie and Paul Agnew. With "Le Jardin des Voix" he took part in numerous concerts and performed the role of Zéphir in Lully's Atys on concert tour with Les Arts florissants. His collaboration with Les Arts florissants has been developing very successfully ever since and he has been performing with them, among others, at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, at the Edinburgh Festival and recently at the Château de Versailles (title role in Charpentier's Actéon).
In 2013/14 he took part in staged productions of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at the Opéra national de Lorraine, Purcell's King Arthur with B'Rock (Baroque Orchestra Ghent) in Brussels and Amsterdam, Orphée aux Enfers by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (title role) in Den Haag as well as Rameau, Maître à danser (Daphnis et Eglée, La Naissance d'Osiris) in Caen and on tour throughout France with Les Arts Florissants.
His opera plans in 2014/15 include Rameau's Castor et Pollux am Théâtre des Champs-Elysées with Le Concert Spirituel (under the baton of Hervé Niquet), Campra's Les Fêtes Vénitiennes at the Opéra Comique in Paris with Les Arts Florissants (William Christie conducting) and Rameau's Dardanus (title role) at the Opéra national de Bordeaux (Raphaël Pichon conducting).
Reinoud Van Mechelen is also in great demand in concert. Additionally to Les Arts Florissants, he has collaborated with ensembles such as Le Concert Spirituel, Les Talens Lyriques, Le Poème Harmonique, Il Gardellino, L'Arpeggiata, Ausonia, Ludus Modalis, B'Rock, Ricercar Consort, Scherzi Musicali and the European Union Baroque Orchestra. In 2014 he performed his first Evangelist in J.S. Bach's Johannespassion with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.