Belgian trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts is a musical force to be reckoned with, whose all-embracing love of music knows no boundaries. Praised for his outstanding technical capabilities and sensitive musicality, his repertoire encompasses every epoch, from baroque to contemporary music and jazz.
He has appeared as a soloist with leading orchestras including the NHK Symphony, Vienna Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, NDR Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre Philharmoniques of Strasbourg and Luxembourg, under conductors such as Alan Gilbert, Yakov Kreizberg, Jun Märkl, and Matthias Pintscher. He is a regular guest of internationally renowned music festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Niedersächsische Musiktage, the Takefu International Music Festival in Japan, Ars Musica in Belgium, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the Rheingau Musik Festival.
Reinvigorating the standard repertoire for trumpet with ingenious programmes and unusual contexts has become Jeroen Berwaerts’ calling card. One such programme places Handel’s Feuerwerksmusik and dances from Rameau’s opera Dardarus alongside chansons by Jacques Brel. The singing roles in such programmes is generally taken up by Jeroen Berwaerts himself, who – alongside his active career as a trumpeter – completed jazz vocal studies at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent.
Jeroen Berwaerts’ extraordinary commitment to contemporary music is evident in the numerous world premieres he has given, including Toshio Hosokawa’s second trumpet concerto Im Nebel and Francesco Filidei’s Carnevale. Following Håkan Hardenberger he was the second trumpeter worldwide to add HK Gruber’s Busking (2007) to his repertoire.
Last season he performed Nigredo: The Dark Night of the Soul by Tobias Broström for the third time, together with Håkan Hardenberger and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding. Further highlights were his appearance at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele and concerts with Ensemble Resonanz and Alexander Melnikov at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. This season, concerts are planned with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the wind section of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, and the WDR Radio House Orchestra, among others.
Jeroen Berwaerts’ discography includes Signals from Heaven, recorded with Salaputia Brass, with whom he is trumpeter, jazz-vocalist, and ensemble director. His recording of Paul Hindemith’s trumpet sonata with Alexander Melnikov was released on Harmonia Mundi in 2015. In 2012 he recorded Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano, Trumpet, and Orchestra under Teodor Currentzis with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the same year he recorded Toshio Hosokawa’s Voyage VII with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg.
Jeroen Berwaerts studied with the celebrated trumpet virtuoso Reinhold Friedrich in Karlsruhe. Since 2008, he has been Professor of Trumpet at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover. He is also Professor in Residence at the Royal Academy of Music in London and an official Yamaha Artist.
2020/21 season
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