Biography Nele Vertommen

Nele Vertommen (b. 1999) has been fascinated by early music since the age of five when she first heard Bach’s St Matthew Passion. It was instantly clear to her that she wanted to be able to play this music herself.

When she discovered, after two years of playing the oboe, that those beautiful oboe solos from the Matthew Passion were actually written for the Baroque oboe, she made the decision to become a Baroque oboist.

At the age of fourteen, she began studying Baroque oboe, and by fifteen she was a student at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in the class of Marcel Ponseele. After a gap year in The Hague in which she studied both Baroque oboe and recorder, she received her bachelor’s degree with high distinction.

Once back in Belgium, she completed her master’s degree in Brussels, also with high honors. For her graduation, she received a prize from the artistic foundation “Horlait-Dapsens” and soon after she was selected by Klara to be part of their eponymous program « twenty musicians in their twenties ». In September 2021 she won the first prize at the first and last competition she did: The International Telemann Competition in Magdeburg. As she has a great love for earlier repertoire as well, she is since a few years developing her skills on earlier double reed instruments.

Together with her partner Beniamino Paganini, she leads Musica Gloria. This ensemble plays for organisations such as BOZAR (BE), Trigonale (AT), Bachfest Leipzig (DE), AMUZ (BE), Festivals de Wallonie (BE), Concertgebouw Brugge (BE), TAM Regensburg (DE), and 30CC (BE), and has so far recorded 5 CDs.

Besides performing with Musica Gloria, Nele regularly joins ensembles including, Il Gardellino (BE), A Nocte Temporis (BE), La Chapelle Harmonique (FR), Collegium Marianum (CZ), Gli Angeli Genève (CH), Utopia Orchestra (DE) and Concerto Köln (DE).