Matthijs van der Moolen is a musician specialising in early and contemporary chamber music. He performs on historical trombones and slide trumpets, and teaches and researches them. His 2025 solo album Ricercati on Navis Classics features early music by Virgiliano and Marais, plus two premieres of new works for solo sackbut by Martijn Padding.

castello consort

Matthijs co-founded the Castello Consort, which performs music from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Alongside its exploration of historical repertoire, the ensemble regularly collaborates with living composers to explore new possibilities for historical instruments. Matthijs contributes to the ensemble’s artistic direction and its work in early music and contemporary creation.

In programmes dedicated to early music, the Castello Consort seeks a unique sound world for each repertoire, combining the latest musicological research with a fresh approach that challenges both performers and listeners. The ensemble regularly appears at leading festivals and concert series throughout Europe and released its debut CD, Fantastissimus, on Navis Classics in 2023. Two new CDs will follow on Channel Classics (Outhere Music) in 2027: Symphoniæ, exploring music from the seventeenth-century Brussels court, and Ligeti x Frescobaldi, a dialogue between Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata and works by Frescobaldi. In 2026, the ensemble debuted at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

teacher

Matthijs is a passionate teacher of historical trombones and early music. He has taught courses on Venetian polychoral music and French Baroque music for the Huismuziek organisation. Since 2024, he has taught sackbut at the annual summer course Between Prague and Vienna in Slavonice, Czech Republic. In 2025, he joined the faculty of the Renesance Opočno and Cantare et Sonare Innsbruck workshops as a sackbut teacher. At the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, Matthijs has worked as a Professional Integration Coach since 2023, mentoring master's students in the Early Music department with their entrepreneurship and professional projects. He has also coached a project week on seventeenth-century Italian repertoire at the same institution in 2021.

researcher

Matthijs is currently pursuing a PhD in Musicology at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg im Breisgau, in cooperation with the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. His research focuses on the trombone in seventeenth-century France, England, and the Low Countries, a repertoire that has so far received little attention from the trombone's perspective. He will defend his dissertation in 2027.

His previous research focused on historical organs from Northern Italy, resulting in the reconstruction of such an instrument for the Castello Consort, historical tuning systems, and the music of Adam Jarzębski (master's thesis). In 2024, Matthijs was selected for the REMArkable scheme, which supports young early music researchers through the REMA organisation.

performer

In 2018, Matthijs graduated cum laude in Historical Trombone with Charles Toet at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. He later specialised in Renaissance music on trombone and slide trumpet at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

He has performed with ensembles including Música Temprana, Bach Collegium Japan, Holland Baroque, Capriccio Stravagante, The Netherlands Bach Society, New Collegium, La Fonte Musica, Innsbrucker Hofmusik, Cappella Marciana (San Marco, Venice), Ghislieri Consort, Musica Gloria, La Grande Chapelle, and others.

For concerts, Matthijs plays on instruments ranging from original nineteenth-century historical trombones to copies of earlier sackbuts and (slide) trumpets.