Jozef Van Wissem is ‘both an avant-garde composer and a baroque lutenist, and thus no stranger to dichotomy,’ (New York Times). He has been ‘pushing the lute’s agenda out of the academy and into more accessible circles’ (Pitchfork). Van Wissem has performed over 1200 solo lute concerts in churches and at concert venues around the world, including prestigious rock festivals like ATP and Primavera Sound, playing his all black, one-of-a-kind baroque lute, custom built for him. The titles of his works often have a Christian-mystical appeal. He studied lute with Pat O'Brien in New York. His solo lute compositions are featured in the Sims medieval video game. In 2013 he won the Cannes Soundtrack Award for best score at the Cannes Film Festival for "Only Lovers Left Alive". Van Wissem has released three records with the film director Jim Jarmusch. He was commissioned to compose a sound piece for Hans Holbein’s painting ‘The Ambassadors” (1533) by the National Gallery. In December 2017 he was invited to perform the madrigal depicted in Caravaggio’s painting ‘The Lute Player ‘(1596) at The Hermitage Museum. His new record, features this updated Renaissance work, entitled “You Know That I Love You”. The record's title " We Adore You, You Have No Name" comes "from the "Secret of Secrets" book, a description of worshipping the nameless all-inclusive God.””
