Liuwe Tamminga

Biography

Liuwe Tamminga received his musical education at the Groningen Conservatory and obtained his diploma in 1977 under Wim van Beek, after which he went to study in Paris with André Isoir and Jean Langlais, and eventually in Italy with Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini.

Since 1982, he has been the organist at the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna, which contains historic organs by Lorenzo da Prato (1471–1475) and Baldassarre Malamini (1596). He shares this position with Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini.

His performances of Renaissance and Baroque music, especially Italian, have earned him the praise of specialized critics, as well as many awards. He has held concerts all over the world and taught master classes in the most important early music institutions (at the Academy for Italian Organ Music in Pistoia, at the Haarlem Summer Academy for Organists, in Boston etc.). For many years he has collaborated with distinguished early music directors and performers, such as Frans Brüggen, Bruce Dickey, Sergio Vartolo and with such respected ensembles as the Concerto Palatino and Odhecaton.

He has contributed to the rediscovery and appreciation and of less well-known composers, such as Fiorenzo Maschera, Marco Antonio Cavazzoni and Jacques Buus, and has published editions of works by Cavazzoni and Buus, among others.

Currently, he is the Curator of the San Colombano Museum – Tagliavini Collection in Bologna, a unique collection of instruments — both for its quality and for the number of instruments shown — inaugurated in 2010. Mostly dating from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century, the instruments include clavichords, organs, harpsichords, spinets, pianos, and automatic instruments, as well as a few wind and folk instruments.

Recordings

Publications

Prizes and awards