Ralph Rousseau Meulenbroeks ("Rousseau" being the family name of his mother which can be traced back to the Rousseaus in 18th century France - perhaps even to the famous gamba player and theorist Jean Rousseau) showed his prodigious talent at an early age, playing the piano and bass guitar at the age of eight. He later combined his conservatory double bass studies (with Henk Guldemond) with a masters and Ph.D. in physics. He played double bass in the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and worked with major conductors such as Ricchardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He also gave many recitals and solo concerts with orchestras in the Netherlands and abroad, including numerous radio and tv performances, and he managed to find time to play jazz, pop and rock music in several bands as well. He started playing the viola da gamba in 1996 and this gave him the opportunity to advance and redirect his solo career. Since then Ralph has specialised in performing early music, studying viola da gamba with Jaap ter Linden. He is now an esteemed soloist, both in several chamber music ensembles as well as in orchestral works such as the Passions and cantatas of J.S. Bach. He has produced several highly acclaimed cd's with solo music for viola da gamba as well as a live dvd. Ralph Meulenbroeks played solo in the Fringe of the Early Music Festival in Utrecht (2000 through 2002), in the Dutch Early Music network (2003/2004), and in music festvials in Germany, Wroclaw (Poland), Strartford-on-Avon (UK), Brussels, Amsterdam, and Paris. He has recently worked with artists like Max van Egmond, Claron McFadden, sir Roger Norrington, Ivan Fisher, and Janine Jansen and he was a soloist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2006-2008. Outside of his native Netherlands his solo recitals have taken him to Belgium, France, Great Britain, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, the USA, Thailand, and China. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.