Igor Herzog

During his studies Igor Herzog completed a number of master courses: Santiago de Compostella, Spain (guitar –José Luis Rodrigo), Accademia Chigiana Siena, Italy (guitar – Oskar Ghiglia), Aix-en-Provence, France (lute – Hopkinson Smith), Rome (lute – Hopkinson Smith), Trondheim, Norway (lute – Rolf Lislevand).

Originally he devoted himself to the guitar, with his study of this instrument culminating in the Musikhochschle in Köln. From the mid-1990s he has specialised exclusively in playing period instruments: the lute, archlute and theorbo, initially under the tuition of leading experts, particularly Hopkinson Smith. Thanks to extensive study in the field of historically informed performance, including historical and theoretical education, he is today one of the few Slovak specialists in the music of the Renaissance and Baroque, notably as a player of the thorough-bass.

He has played with leading ensembles in Slovakia and abroad (in Argentina: Camerta Monteverdi, Cappella del Seicento, Pro Musica Rosario, Selva vocal e instrumental, Camerata Bariloche; in Montevideo, Uruguay: De Profundis; in Germany: Junge Philharmonie Köln; in the Czech Republic: Collegium Marianum). His artistic partners include singers (Petra Noskaiová, Graciella Oddone, Bernarda Fink, Max van Egmond, Veronica Onetto, Jeffrey Gall, Victor Torres, Susanna Moncayo etc.), and instrumentalists (Rebeka Rusó, vl da gamba, Juan Manuel Quintana, vl da gamba, Marina Bonetti, hp, Peter Zajíček, Miloš Valent, vn a Jana Semerádová, fl. etc.

He has appeared at festivals of early music at home and abroad. In 2010 he created a musical production of Handel’s opera Xerxes for the Lirica Opera House in Buenos Aires. In 2011 he participated in the stage presentation of Monteverdi’s madrigals in the Teatro Argentino de La Plata in Buenos Aires.

From the early 1990s he has also been involved in rteaching. In Argentina he held a position at the Conservatorio Beethoven in Buenos Aires and in Switzerland in 1995-1997 at the Musikschule Uri. Concurrently he was leading performance courses in Argentina at the Universidad Nacional de San Juan, at the Universidad Catolica Argentina and at the guitar festival in San Pedro. From 2006, together with Jeffrey Gall, he has been conducting a workshop on baroque o;pera at the Instituto Superior de Arte de Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.