In the words of his own website, Belgian cellist
Roel Dieltiens "is not a 'star.' He is a discrete artist, open to discovery by his audience, a seeker who combines utmost thoroughness with great integrity and a passion for music." Noted for a breadth of interests that spreads from early music to mainstream repertory to contemporary compositions to ethnic music,
Dieltiens has been responsible for choice performances and recordings in northwestern Europe and beyond.
Roel Dieltiens was born in 1956 in Antwerp, Belgium. His father, Lode Dieltiens, was a choral composer, educator, and organist in Antwerp.
Dieltiens studied the piano as a child, became disillusioned with it, and took up the cello at his brother's urging. With renewed musical energy, he studied at the Chapelle musicale Reine Élisabeth in Waterloo and at Antwerp's Royal Flemish Conservatory, going on for lessons with
Pierre Fournier in Switzerland and for postgraduate degrees at the Akademie für Solisten in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, and at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy.
Dieltiens has performed cello concertos under the leading lights of the Dutch historical performance movement:
Frans Brüggen,
Philippe Herreweghe, and
Reinbert de Leeuw. He has given the world premieres of contemporary works by Luc Van Hove and by the American composer
William Bolcom.
Dieltiens' recording career began in 1995 with an album of concertos by
Tartini, released on the Harmonia Mundi label. He has continued to record for that label as well as for MDG, Etcetera, Accent, and Alpha, receiving the French Choc and Diapason d'Or awards along the way. In 2017 he was part of a chamber group that released the album
Bach Privat on Alpha.
Dieltiens performs on both Baroque and contemporary cellos, and he has worked with the Hungarian traditional music group Muzikás as well as with his own chamber group,
Ensemble Explorations.
Dieltiens is on the faculty of the Musikhochschule Zurich in Winterthur, Switzerland, and at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven, Belgium.