The bass-baritone Donald Bentvelsen (Den Hoorn 1964) discovered singing whilst studying English language and literature, when he joined the Leiden English Choir. After graduating, he went to study at the Sweelinck Conservatoire in Amsterdam under Margreet Honig and completed his studies in 1994. He partook in master-classes by Bernard Kruysen and Udo Reinemann and sang a number of opera roles, including Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro/Mozart) and Papageno (Die Zauberflöte/Mozart).
Recently, Donald Bentvelsen has been a much sought-after soloist in oratorio performances in the Netherlands and abroad. He was a soloist with Ton Koopman, Philippe Herreweghe, Paul McCreesh and Jos van Veldhoven and can be heard on CD-recordings of Bach Cantatas (BWV 150 en 201) and The Fairy Queen by Henry Purcell (Erato/Antoine Marchand). In 1996, he made his debut with the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra in the Missa Paschalis by De Fesch. In the year 2000 he made his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra led by Riccardo Chailly with a small role in a performance of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. In 2007 he sang in the opening concert of the Lübeck Buxtehude Festival, with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir led by Ton Koopman, and this programme was recorded on CD on the label Antoine Marchand (release: May 2007).
He sang in a number of renowned solo ensembles such as The Amsterdam Baroque Soloists (Ton Koopman), Ensemble Tragicomedia (Stephen Stubbs), Trinity Baroque (Julian Podger), Capilla Flamenca (Bart Vandewege), Ensemble Alte Musik Dresden (Norbert Schuster), Capella Figuralis (Jos van Veldhoven) Huelgas Ensemble (Paul van Nevel), Die Frankfurter Vokalsolisten (Gerhard Jenemann), and Capella Palestrina (Maarten Michielsen). He will join Claudio Cavina's group La Venexiana in the summer of 2007 in a Scarlatti programme. In 1995 he was the initiator and co-founder, together with three other male singers, of the Egidius Kwartet (www.egidiuskwartet.nl), which is dedicated to the performance of Renaissance and contemporary music from The Netherlands. With this group he made 13 CD's, most of which were released by the label Et'Cetera
Bentvelsen is also a member of the Amsterdam Baroque Choir under Ton Koopman and sings regularly as a freelancer with La Chapelle Royale and Collegium Vocale Gent, the German Chamber Choir, the Dutch Radio Choir, the Netherlands Bach Society and the Netherlands Chamber Choir.