Ank Reinders

The Early Years Ank Reinders Download: €6.99	In Opera & Oratorio Ank Reinders Download: €6.99	USA 1974 Recital Hope College Ank Reinders Download: €6.99
Den Haag ‘76 Ank Reinders Download: €6.99	Favorites Ank Reinders Download: €6.99	The other Schubert Ank Reinders Download: €6.99

Ank Reinders: Biography
Ank Reinders: Chronology (1954-1966)
Ank Reinders: Chronology (1967-1981)
Ank Reinders: Chronology publications

Dutch singer of elegance and variety' (Daily Telegraph, London)

'Ank Reinders has the stamp of quality in her singing which makes a recital into an important occasion. This Dutch soprano, who has been heard at Wigmore Hall before, paid a return visit last night in a delightful programme, which hardly included an item from the conventional repertoire. [...] She sang a number of songs in English, which was as securely idiomatic as were her renderings of Italian, German and French. Two of Haydn’s English songs were elegantly phrased and a charming group was her contemporary compatriot Sas Bunge's settings of 17th - century English songs which included the little masterpiece 'Go, lovely rose. [...] An unexpected excursion by Hindemith into the English language was his two songs to two texts by Oscar Cox. A warm and unforced voice and a musician line supported Miss Reinders' excellent enunciation of words in all the languages and her artistry was fully complemented by the immaculate accompaniments of Geoffrey Parssons. [...]

'An immensely moving experience.' (The Irish Times, recenseert een concert in Dublin)

'On the program figures an extremely nice and beautiful work by Pergolesi: The 121e psalm, a world premiere. Miss Reinders was given a well deserved applause’ (St. Sulpice, Paris).

‘Miss Reinders showed all her skills in a splendid song recital.' (Magazine ‘Het Parool’)

'One tends to (– erroneously-) relate this lyrical soprano to the oratorio repertoire; Thursday evening she showed a different contour of her skills by singing an outstanding song recital in the Concertgebouw.’

St. Matthew’s passion
‘…..A beautiful presentation in a subdued mood of the soprano airs, in which a flawless, equal sound was supported by a perfect breathing technique.’

Text: René Seghers
Video interview: © 401DutchDivas.nl/RS 2013
Proofread and edited by: Ank Reinders
Photos edited and restored by: 401www
All photos: © 401DutchDivas.nl/Ank Reinders
Audio restauration: © 401DutchDivas.nl/Maarten Eilander
All audio: © 401DutchDivas.nl/Ank Reinders 2013

The soprano Ank Reinders, was born in The Hague, (The Netherlands), November 13, 1931. She came into this world in a time of big changes, which were to colour the years of her tender youth. She went to school and had her first piano lessons at Java, one of the big Indonesian isles. Then, in 1940, in the second world war, Indonesia was occupied by the Japanese army and Europeans were confined into concentration camps. Reinders:

'When the war was over, we were transported by boat to Europe; March 1946 we arrived in The Netherlands.’ I was dropped off in the third grade of grammar school (in Holland called: ‘gymnasium’), which I finished quickly: in four years. But I enjoyed singing in the school choir. On Saturday morning we had to sing the holy Mass; the conductor composed three-part masses for girls’ choir, with a solo soprano part. My clear voice attracted attention. Since I happened to be a good sight reader and high notes were no problem, I had to sing the solo-parts. We sang Mozart, Mendelssohn, Gregorian mass and Christmas carols.  I practiced everywhere in the corridors but the janitor of the school did not appreciate the noise in the staircase and summoned me to shut up'

The first highlight in Ank Reinders’ grammarschool time was the performance of Mozart’s early opera: Apollo et Hyacinthus, in which the soprano was to sing the coloratura part of the princess with a cadenza ending on a high b natural. All five parts were sung by girls.

Studying French language and literature 

After grammarschool, 1950, Ank Reinders registered for French litterature at the University of Leiden. There she discovered the students choir ‘Collegium musicum’ and the choir discovered the soprano.  Her first solo was the tenor part in La fuite en Egypte by Hector Berlioz. Nevertheless the most beautiful memory of the singer was her performance of Bach’s cantata 209 Non sa che sia dolore under the baton of Felix de Nobel, the famous conductor of the Dutch Chamberchoir.  De Nobel conducted the student choir of Leiden university just for fun. As a consequence Ank sang Mozarts Exsultate, jubilate also with the student- orchestra of the Technical University in Delft conducted by Jaap Stotijn, the well-known oboe player.

After two  years in Leiden

The singing practice proved to be not too favorable to study French literature, and one of the Profs asked Ank, which at least were her main activities in University circles? Since the professor let her down for her first exam, Ank Reinders decided to focus on singing. She followed all necessary theoretic courses next to the Lied-class and the opera-class. The teacher of the opera-class asked her to prepare the role of Sophie in Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier and so she did. This role was to bring her on several stages.Ank Reinders loved to concentrate on history of vocal music, the polyphony and the rise of monody, the rise of the castrati and the very beginning of opera, and she described the real, strong tenor voice. No wonder, since her first solo had been a tenor-part. Many years later she would return to these subjects and write a book on castrati.

The first steps into a a career

The masterclasses of the Mozarteum in Salzburg were of great influence to Ank Reinders. She studied the Queen of the Night in the first act of Mozarts Die Zauberflöte and was assigned to sing the role of Sophie in the second act of Der Rosenkavalier. It could not have been better for her. Funny enough she was to sing the second boy in the production of Die Zauberflöte as well, acting alongside to Janet Baker who sang the part of the third boy.She sang two lied-programs, accompanied by Eric Werba and Paul von Schilhawsky. She had a distinct preference for the Lieder by Richard Strauss. In these years Ank Reinders dedicated much time to masterclasses, as they were given by Elisabeth Höngen and Ferdinand Grossmann, both imbedded in Austrian atmosphere and both active in the music hall of the World Exhibition 1956 in Brussels. Duo’s from Der Rosenkavalier were sung with mezzosoprano Rosy Bahl.

Singing competitions in Brussels and in Den Bosch

The next step was to venture a singing competition. It was the second year of the famous competition in Den Bosch. She did not pass the second round in Brussels, where the jury was eager to hear big voices, and Reinders sang Mozart as Mozart used to be sung in the fifties. Neither did she pass the second round in Den Bosch, (1956) where so many sopranos presented themselves. It was Elly Ameling who, deservedly, won the first price. ’And we are still very close friends.’ But the early exclusion from the Belgian competition offered an unexpected present for Ank Reinders: the press did not agree with the elimination of this soprano from the competition, and several locations offered her a podium for a lieder-recital. Thus, with Geza Frid - her accompanist for many years, - she presented a recital in the huge atelier of painter Marcel Hastir, who had his accommodation reshaped in a concert hall. The audience applauded franticly, the duo had to give five encores.

Stand in   

The end of the year- project of the High School of Music in Amsterdam was the production of the opera The merry wives of Windsor by Otto Nicolai, under the baton of Hans Lichtenstein. The student who was meant to sing the part of daughter Anna, lost her voice and for the first time in her life, Ank Reinders had to prepare the part in a few days and to replace the student who was to sing the Anna-role. There were many of those occasions to come.

1957 was the year where the AVRO radio prepared to broadcast all the female ensembles from Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier. And another time Ank Reinders, traced in Vienna where she was auditioning, was to take the part of Sophie, since the young singer (Julietta Farkas) who was to sing Sophie, had fallen ill. Conductor was Friedl Weissmann. The main soprano role of the Marschallin was sung by Marijke van de Lugt. It was still 1957 when Hans Gabor, conductor of the Wiener Kammeroper, invited Ank Reinders to come and sing the role of Musetta in La Bohème by Puccini. And so she moved to Vienna. As there was no money to dress the singers of the Kammeroper, Mimi wore an old gown worn by a Staatsoper-soloist, Eleanor Steber, and Musetta appeared in jeans. La Bohème was sung in a dozen of small theaters in the suburbs around the city.

Her love for the male alto voice

René Clemencic, the leader of a small group of musicians who focused on ‘old music’, discovered the Dutch soprano and invited her to join his group, a very professional knot. Chamber music was presented in the palaces of Schönbrunn and Belvédère. And it was in this group of musicians that Ank Reinders discovered the male alto voice of Josef Mayer. The name ‘alto’ is the correct name for the male voice in falsetto-registration, ‘countertenor’ being the older name of the musical line against the tenor, which could be sung by another singer or could be played by an instrument. The use of the alto voice was -for Ank Reinders- to become a fascination which led to a booklet, 2013, dedicated to the castrato voice in early opera, 2013.

A World première

A small group of musicians was to perform a world première in the Wiener Festwochen 1958 in New York: Nachtrag zum Sündenfall was composed by young Ingomar Grünauer, conducted by Kurt Rapf and the only soprano part - with a top e in it – was sung by Ank Reinders. Thus she contributed to the long tradition of opera.

Souvenirs

The late fifties are filled with splendid memories, she discovered herself and her voice. She sang Exsultate, Jubilate with the Residentie Orchestra in The Hague, under the baton of the first black conductor in The Netherlands: Dean Dixon. Together with Dutch soprano Erna Spoorenberg, she sang the Mass in C major by Mozart, in Neuchâtel, and was honored with a present from the choir: a golden watch! (the choir in Neuchâtel was the long-standing watchmakers choir!). In 1964 Ank Reinders sang three concerts in the Holland festival, she  was the soprano soloist in the Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, with the National Ballet on stage and conducted by Hein Jordans. Later she was often invited to sing this part.'

The Early Years
Ank Reinders
Download: €6.99

Reinders' earliest recordings date back to June 30, 1959, four Schubert Llieder, sung for Dutch radio. We present here a sample of 'Frühlingsglaube':

From Schubert to Bach, Händel, Haydn and Orff

The performance in Locarno of the soprano part in King David by Honegger and her collaboration in the Great Mass by Bach in Hamm, a little city near Dortmund, marked the next step in the international stairs Reinders had to climb. In Belgium and in The Netherlands she was to perform all soprano parts in the popular oratorio’s by Handel and Haydn. And a next world première: Pacem in Terris written by Matthieu Geelen was sung in 1967. Geelen was the one who invited Ank Reinders 15 years later to join the staff of the Music High school in Enschede 1982, where she has taught singing for ten years.

Marriage

1961 was the year of her marriage to Ir. C. Westerduin, an architect. A son and a daughter were born; in 1990 the couple separated.

Geza Frid

Ank Reinders made her debut for one of the broadcasting stations in Holland, accompanied by one of the accompanists related to that station. She sang Drie romances written by the Hungarian/Dutch pianist-componist Geza Frid. This great musician was furious not to have been invited to play for the soprano. From that time on Geza Frid played for Ank Reinders for about ten years:

‘We practiced songs by Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf, which were broadcasted by the (then) four stations in Hilversum. Geza taught me the Hungarian prononciation in order to sing songs by Kodály and Bartók. And Geza composed a song cycle for me: Auf Reise, on words of Hermann Hesse, but I confess that I had a preference for the Drie Romances. They were dedicated to soprano Erna Spoorenberg; our voices were more or less similar in timbre.’

The Schubert recital with Geza Frid that Reinders mentioned is again the June 30, 1959 recital. Reinders sings there Schubert's 'Seligkeit', 'Erster Verslust', ‘Frühlingsglaube' and 'Gott im Frühling'. This recording from our own 401DutchDivas archief, is available as 401DutchDivas download. 

The Early Years
Ank Reinders
Download: €6.99

Here a brief mp3 impression:

Franz Schubert: 'Gott im Frühling'
Ank Reinders (soprano), Geza Frid (piano), 1959.
Available from DD201303 Ank Reinders | The Early Years

Léon Orthel

Still

at Music High School in The Hague, Ank Reinders made acquaintances with Léon Orthel, pianist and composer, in 1955. Reinders:

'His student Ton Hartsuiker, who was to play in a student-concert, called: ‘ Students play their masters’, asked me to sing three early songs by Orthel (opus 26). Orthel loved my performance and I loved the songs on words by Rainer Maria Rilke which suited me marvelously. Many years later, around 1970, Mr. Orthel and I started working together, since this composer loved the colour of my voice. As I showed him the French poems by Rilke, Mr. Orthel was delighted and started to set dozens of poems on music, especially for me. His opus 55 was dedicated to me, and because of my fear for dramatic tones, he encouraged me, saying:” You are more dramatic than you know yourself.’'

'In 1975 Mr. Orthel dedicated two more songs to me, songs on words by Baudelaire. We worked on his songs about three years, for Mr. Orthel asked me - being his favorite soprano – to make registrations of all his songs, the old and the new. The AVRO broadcasting company was delighted to hear this and offered the studio for three long-lasting recordings of all the French and German songs on words by R.M. Rilke, and the three songs on words by Arthur Rimbaud, which I sang with great delight. I always admired and preferred the Six quatrains Valaisans  (Rilke) and the Trois chansons (Rimbaud). My next pianist Wim Serlie and me were honored with the ‘Wagenaar award’ for our execution of so many songs by Léon Orthel’.' 

Den Haag ‘76
Ank Reinders
Download: €6.99

The Netherlands Soloist Ensemble

This Dutch à cappella ensemble was set up by eight vocal soloists of whom Ank Reinders was one of the two sopranos. Led by one of the basses, Chris Verhoog, they made their debut in the Ridderzaal in The Hague. In the first years of their existence, young Robert Holl, who became world famous in later years, was the other bass. Their program consisted of music of Palestrina (an 8-voices Mass), Sweelinck, a St. Matthews Passion by Mauricio Kagel in modern musical idiom and Christmas carols. Tours were made in The Netherlands and to Northern Germany, but after a few years the ensemble we separated: ‘We, eight soloists, were too expensive..

Favorites
Ank Reinders
Download: €9.99

Besides these musical obligations, Ank Reinders was the soprano in a group of instrumentalists from the Residentie-orkest, with whom she enjoyed performing ‘modern’ chamber music, as there were songs by Arthur Bliss and Hanns Eissler. The Three Vocalises for soprano and solo clarinet, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, proved to be a mighty success , since three Radio stations made recordings of the piece. It was Mrs Vaughan Williams, who, after hearing Ank Reinders singing a work of her late husband, offered all his chamber music for soprano and instruments to this Dutch soprano.

Wim Serlie

After Geza Frid’s retirement from the stage, Ank Reinders got acquainted with Wim Serlie, the accompanist of the Musical Highschool in Utrecht. ‘He was an amazing good accompanist, who taught me to leave room for an important note or even a rest, a caesura in the piano part.’ With Tan Crone and Wim Serlie Ank Reinders gave several recitals in the Institut Néerlandais in Paris. In the same period numerous concerts were given for broadcasting stations: the German ones in Bremen, Cologne and Frankfurt and in Bâle in Switzerland. There were recitals in Paris, in Brussels and in Londen, the latter with Geoffrey Parsons in the Wigmore Hall. In Paris Ank Reinders was the soprano in a performance of Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms, in Ireland (Dublin and Cork) she sang a concert for soprano and orchestra, Chu’en Chi, a composition realized by Gerald Schürmann, who conducted the Eirean Symphony orchestra. ‘Even though I did not like the work that much, the Eirean Times mentioned the interpretation of the work as  ‘An immensely moving experience.'

Cécile Chaminade: 'Si j'étais jardinier'
Ank Reinders (sopraan), Wim Serlie (piano)
Available from DD201308 Ank Reinders | The Hague '76

Ank Reinders in the United States of America

It was 1973 when Ank Reinders joined a group of musicians - a branch of NCRV music department – who were sent to the U.S. (Grand Rapids, Michigan) to play and sing in a huge manifestation for the benefit of the Dutch Cancer society. Ank Reinders, belonging to the catholic denomination, was to sing a protestant hymn, ‘Whatever the future will bring you’. Having made acquaintance with the trio ‘The shepherds’, (two brothers and a sister) the family-singers offered to harmonize a background melody. These splendid musicians practiced their hummed harmony to the soloists song in the rear of the aeroplane, much to the delight of many passengers. The Grand Rapids emigrants were moved to tears during the presentation of the hymn in the Big Auditorium. Harold Geerdes, conductor of Calvin’s College choir and orchestra, invited the soloist to sing the soli in the upcoming college concerts. Reinders turned to be a ‘hit’ in the Dutch Immigrant Society, she sang in Handels Messiah and in many more concerts in Grand Rapids and surroundings. ‘Mostly with local organ players who were all of distinguished quality.’ Reinders: ‘I sang Purcell and Britten, De Klerk and Andriessen. And although these Dutch immigrants may not have understood the music, they enjoyed it! They enjoyed hearing a soprano from ‘home’. To please them, I sang psalms from the psalter hymnal. I was happy to find and to work with such splendid musicians. And all churches were equipped with splendid organs.'

‘On my birthday in 1974 I sang a song recital in the Chapel of Hope College, Holland, Michigan, together with this outstanding pianist Ruth Russ from Calvin College, Grand Rapids. The recording of this concert was captured on a CD-recording wwhich was used by Hope College’s singing teachers for many years. A couple of songs written by Léon Orthel figured on the program. The day following the recital, I was brought to Chicago by Mr. Bill Wichers, consul of the Netherlands. I had to give a class at Trinity college.'

‘I was invited to the U.S. about ten times between 1973 and 1985, first as a singer, later as a lecturer and a teacher. My final demonstration took place in one of the prestigious Voice-Congresses of the American Voice Foundation in New York.’

USA 1974
Recital Hope College
Ank Reinders
Download: €6.99

Handel in Grand Rapids

During the rehersal of the Messiah she asked conductor Harold Geerdes to slow down the speed ‘for this is not like Handel’, she said. Ank Reinders was capable of singing lightly and high, but fast as well. But Geerdes, proud as Punch with his Dutch soprano, shouted: ‘but this is Reinders!’ Nevertheless he slowed down. About twenty years later it happened on the university of Potchefstroom in South Africa, where Ank Reinders held a masterclass, that a young professor of philosophy approached the soprano, telling her shyly that he sang in the choir of that FAMOUS Messiah in Grand Rapids with that FAMOUS soprano….

The other Schubert

Although Ank Reinders sang many concerts for the four Dutch radio stations, and enjoyed a lightning career, she made only one recording in September 1979. Thus she leaves behind a modest discography. Reinders:

'Maybe I have not been ambitious enough, maybe I was easily contented, my career was an easy one, one concert came after the other, I never had to fight for a job, I was just invited. In this trade you have to accept a concert or to leave the job to others. Enough sopranos in Holland!! We should be proud on Elly Ameling, the most beautiful voice and the most intelligent singer we had. It was she who made a huge quantity of recordings. My admiration is for her. The greater concerts in the music halls of our country were mostly sung by foreign singers. But when a foreign or national soprano fell ill and had to quit the stage, I was mostly the one who was invited to sing. I stood in for many sopranos, since I knew so many parts and since I was a good sight-reader.' 

The other Schubert
Ank Reinders
Download: €6.99

Ank Reinders kinship with the genre of the ‘lied’ and her readiness to collaborate with contemporary composers was the reason that she can be treated with distinction in this field. The only recording Reinders realised shows a list of unknown songs by Franz Schubert. She did not aspire to put Schuberts Greatest Hits on the list another time.

Farewell to the stage

Ank Reinders studied only with two female teachers, the second one being a student of the first teacher. No one told her to start again from the beginning, she never was compelled to adapt a different voice category. Her voice started as a high one and remained high, very suitable to music by Bach, Mozart and Strauss. Nevertheless, after 1980 this soprano preferred to stop her active career. Reinders:

'When I had passed 50, I got a bit anxious for the highest notes. I have always been proud of my high tessitura, my notes above high c, and accepting lower parts was not an option for me.' 

In Opera & Oratorio
Ank Reinders
Download: €6.99

Congress tiger

Her active singing years behind her, Ank Reinders started reading and learning. Professor Schutte and professor Kersing were happy to respond to the questions of this committed lady. In 1981 she visited the yearly Voice Congress of the COMETS (Collegium Medicorum Teatri) in New York and got exposed to the flexible laryngoscope, a (then) modern instrument that gave the possibility to watch the activities of the human vocal folds. Together with Dr. Coen Waar she practiced in the Ikazia hospital to become familiar with the instrument. So she did with Professor Schutte in Groningen and Professor Kersing in Enschede. Reinders:

''Prof. Schutte managed to make a lot of images, showing the moving vocal folds, of which 40 were exposed on the walls of the hospital during the legendary Voice Congress in Rotterdam 1982 which initiated the IDRS (= International Decade of Research in Singing). Unfamiliar with these images, a British congress-visitor, although a teacher of singing, screamed: ‘But this is pornography!’ Thus started the ‘Knowledge of singing’ in the Netherlands.'

The congress was an eye-opener for many singers and many teachers, in fact, Reinders oconsiders it a turning point. Reinders:

''For the most of them it altered their way of thinking. ‘We saw images of the glottal behavior of the vocal folds, in an adjacent  room we saw a demonstration of the diaphragm moving down when breath was taken in, and moving upward when breath was released in singing.’  Dr. Waar stimulated me to write and to talk about all new things I had got to know. And so I stood before an audience, not to sing but to speak, in 1983 in the Leyenburg Hospital in The Hague. The subject: ‘The castrato voice.'

Teacher of a ‘Conservatory’, the  ‘Academy of Music’ in Enschede, 1982-1992

Ank Reinders was first connected with the Royal institute for dramatic arts Herman Teirlinck in Antwerp and two years later with the Twents Conservatorium in Enschede. Scrutinizing the library for literature on voice, she did not find a single recent book on this topic and was forced to make written notes of her lessons. This would eventually result in the Atlas van de zangkunst, (Atlas on the art of singing) published 1993, the fifth edition of which is still available in 2014. (ed. Eburon). Editor Bärenreiter published the German translation in 1997 (2 editions).

She visited many international congresses, just to learn more, ands as a consequence she herself was invited as a speaker as well. Guided by Prof. Schutte she mastered the fundaments of biomechanics and acoustics of the voice; beside these studies she acquired fundamental knowledge of the history of the singing voice. In between these activities she translated the Latin words of the Holy Mass and several liturgical hymns like the Magnificat and the Stabat Mater in understandable Dutch language: Cantica Latina (1997 ed. Harmonia).

Mozart's voice

In 2006 Ank Reinders was invited to write the annual of Pro Mozart, the magazine of the Dutch Mozart Association. This project resulted in a journal containing 50 pages dealing with castrati, tenors, sopranos and…Mozarts own singing voice. It is clear that Mozart sang the alto voice in several of his own compositions in falsetto register!

Students

Many of the young singers who finished their studies with Ank Reinders, turned out to be good voice teachers at the music schools surrounding Enschede. Among the ones who became famous is Miranda van Kralingen, who sang at the Komische Oper in Berlin, but who, instead of continuing her career, left the stage rather early to accept the place of artistic manager of one of the Dutch opera houses. 

Together with Cora Canne Meijer, Kay Jensma, Maria Rondèl and Margreet Witsen Elias, she founded the Dutch Association of teachers of singing in 1983. For several years she had the function of vice president. Ank Reinders was honorary member of the EVTA (= European Voice Teachers Association), member of the British Assosiation of Teachers of Singing (AoToS) and Associated Member of Comets (= collegium medicorum teatri). 1975 to 1985 she was a member of the jury for the State-Exams of singing.