Willem De Fesch

Willem De Fesch
De Fesch [Defesch, de Veg, de Feghg, du Feche], Willem [William, Guillaume, Guglielmus]
(b Alkmaar, bap.

26 Aug 1687; d London, 3 Jan 1761). Dutch composer and violinist. He was the son of Louis de Fesch and Johanna Maasbragt. Despite his parents’ marriage in Amsterdam (1685) and his brother’s birth in Alkmaar, the family orginated from the Pays de Liège and returned to Liège before 1690. De Fesch may have been a choirboy or even a singer in Liège during the 1690s. By about 1710 both he and his elder brother Pieter (b 28 Nov 1685) had settled in Amsterdam: Pieter had stayed some years in Leiden, where he was registered as a musician at the University on 6 June 1706. In Amsterdam De Fesch married Anna Maria Rosier, daughter of the composer Carl Rosier, who was active in Bonn, Amsterdam and Cologne. The names Willem, Pieter and Anna Maria de Fesch occur in the accounts of the City Theatre for dancing, singing and playing during the years 1708–21.