Daan van Aalst is an independent Recording Producer / Sound Engineer involved in recording high quality classical and contemporary music in the Netherlands and abroad. Daan runs his own recording company, allowing him to work independently with musicians and labels.
Daan regularly works with the Residentie Orchestra The Hague, the Rotterdam Philharmonic
Orchestra as well as the Dutch National Opera and Ballet. He is also active in the field of chamber
music with artists such as Arcadi Volodos, the Castello Consort and Naum Grubert,
Recent projects include the producing for an album centered around the music of Erwin Schulhoff
with the Residentie Orchestra and their chief conductor Jun Märkl, sound engineering for Verdi’s
‘Simon Boccanegra’ at the National Opera and with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for Medici
TV and Mezzo, producing two albums with the Castello Consort for Channel Classics and
recording the audio tunes and sound logo’s for Dutch national classical radio station 'NPO Klassiek'.
Daan graduated from the Royal Conservatoire The Hague in 2002, where at the studied Art of
Sound department. In his second phase of the programme, he worked on a project studying classical
music and surround sound recording.
After his graduation, he continued working as a freelance recording engineer for companies like
Channel Classics, Polyhymnia International, De Haske/Hal Leonard and Da Capo.
Daan has worked as independent recording producer and balance engineer with artists such as
Arcadi Volodos, Naum Grubert, Rian de Waal, Barbara Kozelj, Pieter Wispelweij, Harro
Ruijsenaars, het Rubens Kwartet, Hidemi Suzuki, Charlotte Margiono, het Symfonieorkest van
Vlaanderen, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Joop Celis and for labels such as Channel Classics,
Et’cetera, Chandos, BMG Japan, Challenge Records and Onyx Classics.
In the challenging (due to Covid) 2020/2021 season, Daan produced a series of recordings with the
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with conductors and soloists such as Francois Xavier Roth,
Manfred Honeck, Daniel Barenboim, Lahav Shani, Stéphane Denève, Matthias Goerne, Leonidas
Kavakos and Martin Fröst.
In 2013 Daan started his own international record label Navis Classics. National and artists such as
Noé Inui, Vassilis Varvaresos, Naum Grubert, Joachim Eijlander, The Castello Consort, Dimitris
Tiliakos, the Zemtsov Viola Quartet Sarah Kapustin, Roeland Jagers and Ensemble Houthandel
have all successfully released albums with Navis Classics. Upcoming releases have been recorded
with Naum Grubert.
Daan was active as an audio director for several video productions including the Pathé Live release
of Giselle with the Dutch National Ballet and Olga Smirnova, multiple streams for Medici TV with
the Rotterdam Philharmonic, two television shows for PBS with ’The Friar Alessandro’ and ‘The
New York Cantors’, as well as the ‘Side by Side’ productions for Dutch Public Radio and Television
in which the Royal Conservatoire The Hague teamed up with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth
Century and legendary conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Sir Roger Norrington, Hidemi
Suzuki and Sigiswald Kuijken.