Aafje Heynis was born May 2nd 1924 in Holland. She was born to a family that loved to sing and as young as aged four she sang in the child choir and together with her father at the harmonium. On the advice of Jan Mienes, the conductor of the choral society in her native town of Krommenie she auditioned for teacher Jo Immink in Amsterdam with an arrangement of the "Pilgrims' Chorus" from Wagner's "Tannhauser". After that from 1946 to 1949, her singing teacher was Aaltje Noorderwier-Reddingius and was given good advice by Laurens Bogtman, the great oratorio singer. She quickly established her reputation, to begin with in the field of oratorio. With her performance in Brahm's Alto Rhapsody with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of Eduard van Beinum, she attracted wide attention. She performed many concerts in churches, Lieder recitals, and numerous performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. For the Philips label she made a whole series of recordings of works by Brahms, Bach, Handel and Mendelssohn. However Aafje Heynis showed a particular preference for Gustav Mahler, one consequence of which was a legendary recording of Mahler's Symphony No.2 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.