Stijn Saveniers is a multifaceted conductor and cellist.
In 2014, he founded a new comic music theater production house which was called ‘Volksopera’. Volksopera develops professional productions of comic opera, operetta and early musical, a repertoire spanning Europe between 1850 and 1950.
Volksopera aims at both preserving this genre musically — its specific musical needs, sound expression in particular — and innovating the presentation of it through confrontation with today’s theatre paradigms. All productions will be based on the research that Stijn Saveniers conducts in the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp; within this research he publishes new critical editions of little known quality works. Volksopera’s first production, ‘Le Docteur Miracle’ (The Wonder Doctor) by Charles Lecocq, premiered to great acclaim in January this year.
Recently, he created the very first original Arabic opera, Opera Dera, in Kuwait, composed by Dr. Rasheed Albougaily and written by Dr. Ali Alanezi. A tour through the Arab Peninsula is planned for the 2015 – 2016 season.
Stijn Saveniers studied at the conservatories of Leuven (Belgium) and Maastricht (the Netherlands), where he obtained, both for cello and orchestral conducting, his Masters degree with greatest distinction. In addition, he was awarded the Hustinckx Price in 2006.
This triennial price is awarded to the most promising young talent. From then onwards he was part of a wide variety of productions: opera, operetta, ballet, symphonic and chamber orchestra repertoire, oratory and contemporary music. He was assistant conductor in ‘Entführung aus dem Serail’ (Mozart), ‘Il Barbiere di Seviglia’ (Rossini) and ‘Manon Lescaut’ (Puccini), all productions of the Summer Opera Festival Alden Biesen.
Since 2009, he is Music Director of the Brussels Operetta Theatre, where he conducted productions of ‘La Périchole’ & ‘La Grande-duchesse de Gérolstein’ (Offenbach), ‘Der Vogelhändler’ (Zeller), ‘Das Land des Lächelns’ (Lehar), ‘Die Fledermaus’ (Strauss) and ‘Clivia’ (Dostal). He toured Belgium and the Netherlands with a ballet production by ‘In The Wings’, inspired by ‘Peter and the Wolf’ (Prokofiev). This production also took him to Broadway, New York. ‘Peter and the Wolf’ was also part of a concept that saw his debut with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra.
He conducted HERMESensemble, of which he is a fixed member, in their project ‘The Times’- a forum for young composers.
Until 2010 he also had commitments as choir conductor. The highlight of his oratory concerts was, without a doubt, the performance of Brahms’s ‘German Requiem’ and ‘Song of Fate’, combined in a program with Strauss’s ‘Four Last Songs’.
As a cellist, apart from being a HERMESensemble member, he was asked as section leader for many recordings, by different orchestras and ensembles, for chamber music or as a soloist.
His conducting experience is further enhanced by additional musical activities. He regularly works as a pianist-répétiteur, especially in the singing class of Gemma Visser, which makes him at ease with most of the vocal repertoire. This work led to him taking up singing again himself; as a boy soloist, he had sung in the opera houses of Antwerp and Ghent and La Monnaie in Brussels. As a singer, he took part in a master class ‘Acting for Singers’, led by Uwe Hergenröder, which gave him a great insight into theatrical views, the viewpoint of a director, and changed his vision on approaching music as well.