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Cappella Amsterdam is a Dutch choir that has specialized in both early and contemporary music, experimenting with vocal techniques appropriate to each of these repertories. The group is noted for its distinctive vocal blend, which has attracted a variety of contemporary composers.

The choir is one of the more durable ensembles on the Dutch scene, having been founded in 1970. Its first director was Jan Boeke; its music director as of the mid-2020s is Daniel Reuss, who was appointed in 1990 and transformed the choir into a professional ensemble. The 25 members of Cappella Amsterdam emphasize Dutch repertory from both the Renaissance and modern eras; music by such composers as Sweelinck, Lassus, Ton de Leeuw, Robert Heppener, and Klaas de Vries is frequently performed. The choir maintains a busy schedule of concerts around the Netherlands and beyond and has appeared at the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the Holland Festival, and the Rheingau Musik Festival. Cappella Amsterdam collaborates often with both instrumental and operatic ensembles. The choir made its recording debut on the Hyperion label in 1997 with a recording of Ivan Moody's Passion and Resurrection and has since released albums on Challenge Classics, Harmonia Mundi, and Glossa (a pair of Bach recordings with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century).

The group has participated in productions of Rameau's Les Indes galantes with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century under Frans Brüggen and of Tan Dun's opera Marco Polo. The choir's instrumental collaborators have included early music groups, traditional orchestral ensembles, and modern groups: the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain; it has also joined with the SWR Vocal Ensemble and the RIAS Kammerchor from Germany. Noted for its homogenous vocal blend, Cappella Amsterdam has recorded for prestigious labels that emphasize strong engineering. Cappella Amsterdam recorded Arvo Pärt's Kanon Pokajanen for Harmonia Mundi in 2016 and returned to Glossa the following year, again teamed with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century for a historically informed reading of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123, and in 2019, it departed again from the early music - contemporary duality with a recording of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem. The group remained active through the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing the album Roland de Lassus: Inferno on Harmonia Mundi in 2020 and then moving to Channel Classics for the Renaissance-contemporary program In Umbra Mortis in 2021, David Lang: the writings (based on Hebrew biblical texts) in 2022, and a recording of Alfred Schnittke's Psalms of Repentance in 2023. By that time, the group's recording catalog comprised more than 20 choice releases. ~ James Manheim

Daniel Reuss is best known as one of Europe's finest choral conductors, though he has led many major orchestras and had success in opera as well. All of his conducting posts have been with choral ensembles, most notably, the Cappella Amsterdam and Berlin's RIAS Kammerchor. His repertoire has been very eclectic and spans from the late Renaissance to the 21st century. He has toured extensively and has made numerous recordings.

Reuss was born in Leiden, Netherlands, on July 2, 1961. He studied choral conducting at the Rotterdam Conservatory, where his teachers included Barend Schuurman. In 1982, aged just 21, Reuss founded the Early Music Choir Arnhem. In the 1980s, he steadily built his career, and from 1988-1998, he served as conductor of the talented amateur group the Venus Vocal Ensemble. In 1990, he assumed duties as principal conductor of the Cappella Amsterdam and still serves in that role. Throughout his tenure, Cappella Amsterdam has grown in prestige, performing not only in many acclaimed concerts but in major opera productions, as with the 1996 Dutch premiere of Tan Dun's Marco Polo, where Reuss served as choral director. The live performance was issued by Sony in 1997 and received high praise. In the 1990s, Reuss was also engaged in other activities, which included conducting an excellent amateur choir, the Dutch Student Chamber Choir, from 1990-1997. In addition, he turned to educational pursuits, teaching choral conducting at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatory from 1994-2000.

In 2003, Reuss accepted another position, this one in Berlin as conductor of the RIAS Kammerchor. Though he held his Berlin post only until 2006, he achieved notable success with the ensemble, which included his highly acclaimed Harmonia Mundi disc of Handel's Solomon (issued in 2007). On this recording, Reuss also conducts the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin. Reuss debuted at the English National Opera in February 2007, leading a performance of Handel's Agrippina. U.K. critics were almost unanimous in their praise of both him and the production. In 2008, Reuss assumed duties as chief conductor and artistic director of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, succeeding Paul Hillier, remaining in this role until 2013. Reuss' 2010 Harmonia Mundi recording of Frank Martin's Golgotha, with both the Cappella Amsterdam and Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, was another critical success and earned a Grammy Award nomination. In 2015, Reuss became the chief conductor of the Ensemble Vocal Lausanne.

Reuss' repertoire includes works by Sweelinck, J.S. Bach, Schubert, Brahms, Janáček, Poulenc, Messiaen, Ligeti, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Ivan Moody, and such contemporary Dutch composers as Ton de Leeuw, Robert Heppener, and Peter Schat. Reuss is equally effective in smaller a cappella works, like a Sweelinck or Brahms motet, as he is in large pieces, like Handel's Solomon or Martin's Golgotha. He has toured throughout Europe, the U.S., and Japan. Reuss has also recorded for such labels as Ondine, Channel Classics, Hyperion, and Glossa. In 2019, on Glossa, he issued a recording of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, conducting the Cappella Amsterdam and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, with soloists André Morsch and Carolyn Sampson. ~ Robert Cummings