Anton Vernooij

Anton Vernooij
Born	Anthonius Cornelis Vernooij (1940-11-18)18 November 1940 Cothen, Netherlands
Died	12 January 2025(2025-01-12) (aged 84) De Bilt, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation(s)	priest, composer and professor

Anthonius Cornelis "Anton" Vernooij (18 November 1940 – 12 January 2025) was a Dutch priest, composer and professor.

Biography

Vernooij was born in Cothen on 18 November 1940. He attended gymnasium at the Archbishopric Seminary in Apeldoorn and graduated in 1959. Afterwards he studied theology and philosophy at the Major Seminaries in Huis ter Heide and Driebergen-Rijsenburg. He was ordained a priest by Bernardus Johannes Alfrink in Werkhoven on 18 July 1965. After his ordination, he went to Italy where he studied musical composition and Gregorian chant at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome and had piano lessons in Pescara. Upon his return in the Netherlands in 1969, he became a teacher of Gregorian chant and hymnology at the Netherlands Institute for Church Music in Utrecht. In 1975 he obtained his doctorate at the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra in Rome with the dissertation 'Lo sviluppo della Fuga nelle Fantasie di Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck'. In the 1980s he was pastor of the Paulus parish in Utrecht. Afterwards he became a Professor by special appointmen of church music at the Tilburg University in 1998. He was also chairman of the composition committee for Gezangen voor Liturgie (Songs for Liturgy).

Vernooij died in De Bilt on 12 January 2025, at the age of 84 years old.