BRUSSELS TRIO SONATAS

This recording was done in the scope of a two-year research project performed by instrument maker and organologist Geerten Verberkmoes at KASK & Conservatorium, the school of arts of HOGENT and howest (Belgium). Trio sonatas of the eighteenth-century Brussels composers De Croes, Van Maldere and Godecharle are played by an all-bowed-string ensemble, consisting of Ann Cnop (violin), Shiho Ono (violin) and Mathilde Wolfs (cello). They use replica instruments built by Geerten Verberkmoes, made after structurally unmodified examples of the Brussels-based maker Benoit Joseph Boussu (1703-1773), preserved at the collection of the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels. A lot of Brussels on this cd!

Geerten Verberkmoes (instrument maker, researcher)
Geerten Verberkmoes (Bergen op Zoom, 1968) studied chemistry, music and musical instrument making. In the past he has worked in higher chemistry education and in the field of acoustics. He has been a musical instrument maker since 2001 and from 2010 onwards, he teaches instrument making, chemistry and acoustics at the School of Arts in Ghent, Belgium. Verberkmoes currently focuses on the construction of and research into historical string instruments. In addition, he obtained a doctorate from the University of Ghent in June 2020, for a study on the life and instruments of eighteenth-century violin maker Benoit Joseph Boussu. His organological publications have appeared in specialist journals such as Early Music, The Galpin Society Journal and The Strad.

Ann Cnop (violin)
Ann is regularly seen as a soloist at major venues from Mexico to Japan. Under the direction of Sigiswald Kuijken she performed Bach’s concertos and Mozart’s Symphonie Concertante. With Il Fondamento she played the violin concerto in e of Felix Mendelssohn. Since 2013, Ann is concertmaster of the German orchestra Concerto Foscari (Hannover), plays in duo with Luc Devos (piano) and is the first violin of the string quartet Quatuor a4. In 2019, Ann received a PhD at the University of Ghent, focusing on the violin technique in the Romantic era. Ann also teaches Baroque violin at the Mechelen Conservatory and is active as a researcher at the Antwerp Conservatory.

Shiho Ono (violin)
Based in Belgium since 2009, Shiho Ono is a period instrument violinist, as well as violin professor at the Musikakademie der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft (Eupen, Belgium). A Japanese native, Shiho grew up in a family of musicians in Auvergne (France). After graduating from Chicago College of Performing Arts with pedagogue Yuko Mori, she became a member of the Nagaokakyo Chamber Orchestra (Japan) from 2004 until 2009. Having a deep interest in historically informed practice, she returns to Europe in 2009 and studies period instrument interpretation with Mira Glodeanu and Alessandro Moccia at the Brussel Royal Conservatory, graduating for her Master degree with the highest honours.

Mathilde Wolfs (cello)
After receiving a first prize at the Axion Classics Dexia competition in 2003, Mathilde Wolfs is admitted to the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in the class of Jeroen Reuling, where she obtained her final diploma with distinction in 2008. She also took lessons with the cellist Marcio Carneiro. Mathilde then chooses to specialize in Baroque cello at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Viola de Hoog. Mathilde is active in the Belgian music scene, where you can see her at work at Scherzi Musicali, Les Agrémens, Conversations, Les Abbagliati, Lingua Franca, Les Timbres and A Nocte Temporis. She is also a member of the string quartet a4, and is currently part of the Project Boussu. In addition, Mathilde is a cello teacher at the music academy of Court-Saint-Etienne and Ottignies.