Prof. Dr. A.A. Clement

Prof. Dr. A.A. Clement

Professor of Theology and Music Send an e-mail

Academic curriculum

Prof. Dr Albert Clement (1962) obtained his diplomas in Organ Teaching and Organ Performance (taught by Bram Beekman) from the Brabant Conservatoire in 1986 and 1988 respectively, initially followed by a career in organ teaching and concert performance. Whilst still a student, he participated in organ masterclasses with Ton Koopman, Ludger Lohmann, and Wolfgang Rübsam. As an organist, he has served the Eglise Wallonne in Middelburg since his student days, where he plays a historic Duyschot/Müller organ.

In addition, he studied musicology (master’s degree in 1987, with highest distinction) at Utrecht University and theology at Leiden University; in 1989, he was awarded his doctorate (also with highest distinction) from Utrecht University for an interdisciplinary thesis on Johann Sebastian Bach. From 1991 to 1996, he was appointed as a researcher at Utrecht University on the recommendation of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW fellow, under the supervision of Prof. Dr Willem Elders and Prof. Dr Otto J. de Jong), followed by a tenured position as a lecturer-researcher at the same university, where for many years he taught a wide and diverse range of musicology courses and held numerous administrative roles (chair of the programme committee, chair of the examination board, member of the department board, teaching coordinator, member of the faculty academic committee, etc.). Two of his Master’s students received the faculty thesis prize for their Master’s theses. In 2001, he was one of the first in his academic fields to obtain Senior Qualifications in both teaching and research at Utrecht University.

Also on the recommendation of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences KNAW, he was appointed Full Professor at Utrecht University in 2004 in his capacity as an internationally recognised expert in the field of Baroque music. This chair was subsequently converted into a permanent chair with a broad interdisciplinary academic mandate: Music Culture. In 2004, he was also involved in the establishment of Utrecht University’s international Honours College in Middelburg (the Roosevelt Academy, later renamed University College Roosevelt), of which he was a founding father; since then, he has not only led its music programme, but also served for many years as Head of Arts & Humanities. In addition to teaching music, he also taught the student-favourite course ‘The Bible in the Arts’ there for many years.

In 2021, he was additionally appointed as a personal professor at the TUA with the teaching subject: Theology & Music. In 2023, this appointment was converted into a permanent regular professorship. In addition to his interdisciplinary research remit, he teaches the elective module ‘Theology and Music’ as part of the Reformed Theology Master’s programme at the TUA and supervises MA theses and PhD candidates.

Publications

He has over 400 publications to his name, published by many internationally renowned publishers (the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Brepols Publishers, Oxford University Press, Amsterdam University Press, Brill, Butz Verlag, Bärenreiter Verlag, etc.), including various books on Bach and Renaissance music. He is General Editor of the series Exempla Musica Zelandica, published by the Royal Zeeland Society of Arts and Sciences, which brings to light significant music that has been unjustly forgotten. In addition, he is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Royal Society for Music History of The Netherlands – one of the world’s oldest existing musicological journals. He led an international Bach project dedicated to the so-called ‘Bach Bible’, a commentary by Abraham Calov in which Bach made hundreds of annotations. A facsimile edition of this was published, followed by an accompanying, multilingual collection of scholarly studies edited by him.

For a list of publications (under construction), see List op publications

Current projects

He is presently preparing – in addition to a number of articles – various interdisciplinary books on Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Furthermore, he is initiating two major projects, one devoted to ars moriendi and Bach (an international conference on this subject is scheduled for 1–3 June; for further information, see this link) and the other to Bach’s theological library (an international colloquium on this subject is planned for next year in Eisenach).

PhD students

Prof. Dr Albert Clement supervises a large group of international PhD students, of whom he has so far guided more than 30 to their doctorates at various universities. A number of these PhD dissertations have been awarded the highest academic honours and external prizes (including the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation’s study prize).

As presenting research findings within international academic circles and establishing personal contacts with colleagues from abroad is of great importance to young academics, the supervision of PhD students has also led to the presentation of a very significant number of papers at national and international scientific conferences in continental Europe, Scandinavia, Great Britain (Oxford, Cambridge, London, Leeds, Manchester) and the US (Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.).

A large number of them went on to work in higher education after completing their PhDs, and four went on to become full professors themselves. For an overview of completed PhDs, see this link.

Positions and memberships

• Member of the Royal Association of Organists & Church Musicians [formerly: Koninklijke Nederlandse Organistenvereniging] (Chair Dpt. Zeeland 1990-1994)
• Professor of Musicology at Utrecht University
• Member of the Royal Zeeland Society of Arts and Sciences (KZGW) (board member 1993–1999)
• Board member of the Royal Society for Music History of The Netherlands (KVNM)
• Member of the Neue Bach Gesellschaft
• General editor of the KZGW’s Exempla Musica Zelandica series
• Editor-in-chief of the Journal of the KVNM
• Member of the advisory board for the ‘Musik und Theologie’ series (Kohlhammer Stuttgart)
• Member of the American Bach Society
• Member of the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde
• Expert at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences [KNAW]
• Member of the Artistic Advisory Board of Studium Chorale
• Member of the Working Group on Musical Biblical Interpretation (based in Frankfurt)
• Board member of the Isaac Beeckman Foundation
• Member of the Dutch Baroque Recommendation Committee
• Board member of the La Bourse des Pauvres Honteux Foundation
• Senior member of NOSTER (Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion)
• Board member of the Cultural History Working Group of the KZGW