Jacques Zoon · flute

BIOGRAPHY

After high school in Alkmaar, Jacques Zoon studied flute at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam with Koos Verheul and Harrie Starreveld, graduating with honors. He continued his studies at the Banff Center for the Arts in Canada, where he participated in master classes with Geoffrey Gilbert and András Adorján.
As a teenager and during his studies, Jacques Zoon played in the Dutch National Youth Orchestra and the European Union Youth Orchestra, under the direction of Claudio Abbado and Leonard Bernstein, among others. From 1988 to 1994 he was principal flute of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the baton of Riccardo Chailly. With this orchestra he recorded flute concertos by Mozart, André Jolivet, Frank Martin, and Sofia Gubaidulina. Until 1997 he was also principal flutist of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the direction of Claudio Abbado, Bernard Haitink, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. From 1997 to 2001, he was principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa. In 1998, the Boston Globe selected him as "Musician of the Year." He is a regular guest of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra as principal flutist, has performed as soloist with orchestras and at festivals in Europe, Japan, and the United States, and has made numerous recordings for various labels.
Jacques Zoon was professor of flute at the Rotterdam Conservatory (1988–1992), Indiana University (1994–1997), New England Conservatory and Boston University (1997–2001). Since 2002 he has taught at the Geneva Conservatory and since 2008 in Madrid at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía and the Instituto Internacional de Música de Cámara.
In 1987 Jacques Zoon won the Jury Prize of the Jean-Pierre Rampal Flute Competition in Paris. In 1999 he and his long-time (since 1978) accompanist Bernd Brackman received an Edison Award for the recording of modern classical music for flute and piano.

Jacques Zoon plays an old wooden flute with headjoints that he produces himself. He designed and created a transverse flute with a Boehm system, with which he recorded Bach's Partita in A minor for solo flute. With the Alkmaar flute maker Alfred Verhoef, he constructed the "flautus tremendus" with which he played the Dutch premiere of Gubaidulina's Flute Concerto. With the William S. Haynes Flute Company in Boston, he developed a new wooden flute (called "the Zoon model").