Dutch bass-baritone Hubert Claessens studied at the Conservatory of Music in Maastricht with Mya Besselink and with Margreet Honig. At the Queen Elisabeth Competition 1988 he was distinguished as Third Laureate and was also rewarded with the special “European Prize of the Art Song”, with highest recommandation by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. This led to many recitals all over the world, among others in Brussels, Vienna, Paris, Dublin and Tel-Aviv.

Hubert Claessens began his career at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam and the Nationale Reisopera. He made his debut at the Salzburger Festspiele, the Wiener Staatsoper and The Theatre Le Chatelet in Paris with the world-premiere of “ Die Schwarze Maske” by Christof Penderecki under the supervision of Herbert von Karajan and sang the leading role of Young Sam in Bernstein’s “A Quiet Place”.
From that moment on he was involved in many new creations. He sang the title role in the worldpremiere of Walter Hus’ opera “Orfeo” in Brussels, Antwerp, Paris, Vienna, Lisboa, Berlin, Amsterdam etc. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra invited him to perform the solopart in “ A Survivor of Warsaw” by Schoenberg conducted by Klaus Tennstedt. He interpreted Orgon at the first production of “ Spiel von Liebe und Zufall” by Helge Joerns at the Schwetzingen Festival in Germany. Recently he appeared in a new opera by Guus Jansen/Friso Haverkamp/ Pierre Audi in the title-role of “Hierº” for the Netherlands Opera Amsterdam. He also sang the main part in a new opera by the Dutch composer Gerard Ammerlaan: “Ontstaan in Grote Nood”.

Besides singing he plays many contempory compositions on saxophone, some especially written for and recorded with Hubert Claessens as a soloist. This brought him to many beautiful concert halls such as the Birmingham Symfony Hall, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, The Philharmonie in Cologne, the Konserthus in Stockholm and many others.

A regular guest of the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe, he has performed in concerts and opera productions like “Admeto”, “ Jephta”, “Imeneo”, and “Samson”. This gave him the opportunity to work with Nicholas Mcgegan, Roy Goodman, Charles Farncombe and others.

Hubert Claessens has always enjoyed performing opera’s and concerts with baroque orchestras. His first appearance with La Petite Bande conducted by Sigiswald Kuijken was as Don Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte, recorded live in Budapest during a tour in 1992. This made them work together on many nice occasions. Hubert was involved in their 1995 European tour of Mozart’s Don Giovanni as Leporello, also recorded live, and in 1998 he sang the Count Almaviva during their tour and recording of Le Nozze di Figaro. With the same orchestra he also appeared in Antonio Caldara’s “I Disingannati”, during the Festwochen der Alte Musik in Innsbruck, and on many tours in Japan, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Switzerland and France singing the bass-parts in oratorio’s such as Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s St. John’s Passion.

Jean-Claude Malgoire and La grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy accompanied Hubert Claessens in many different productions, like Don Giovanni (Leporello), Le Nozze di Figaro (Figaro),the Magic Flute (Papageno, Sprecher and Sarastro) and La Clemenza di Tito (Publio), all by Mozart. In 1997 they invited him to produce, sing and conduct a tour with concert-arias by Mozart, the charming opera “ Il Maestro di Capella” by Cimerosa and some instrumental pieces by Mozart. This was after Mr. Claessens made his conducting debut with the Noordholland Philharmonic Orchestra in Haarlem.

Hubert Claessens is also well-known as a concert singer. He performed the St. John’s Passion, the St. Matthew's Passion ( most recently in Japan and Europe with Michel Corboz), Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms, Verdi’s and Faure’s Requiem, Haendel’s Messiah and more than 80 other oratorios and concert-pieces in the finest concert halls such as the Queen Elisabeth Hall in London, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Palacio de Congresos y Auditos in La Coruna (Spain) and the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Hubert Claessens is a versatile artist who finds challenge to be authentic in any period or style of music, reflecting in his repertoire ranging from Schuetz to Penderecki and even Gershwin and Cole Porter. He has participated in numerous radio and television recordings in Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Israel, Austria, Germany, France and Japan and can be heard on many CD recordings.