Jeroen Berwaerts

With a clear, flexible tone and brilliant technique, he effortlessly mastered the gleaming key motifs, trills, and runs, while also lending powerful expression to the cantabile themes. DARMSTÄDTER ECHO, on Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, 20/10/2020

As a soloist, the Belgian trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts – to whom the work is also dedicated – plays with intense musical assuredness. [...] In lieu of virtuosics, Berwaerts performs finely shaded variations of the trumpet's tonal space, which he played in the end without a mouthpiece, dissolving into nothingness, together with the chamber ensemble. SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, on Toshio Hosokawa's trumpet concerto "Voyage VII”, 14/9/2020

Jeroen Berwaerts astonished with an incredibly warm and smooth sound together with a deeply felt approach to melodics. [...] The Andante was especially heartfelt, with Berwaerts drawing out and carrying across the phrasing from his innermost depths. RHEIN-NECKAR-ZEITUNG, 21/2/2020

The concert opened with Haydn’s familiar Trumpet Concerto, in which Berwaerts delivered a captivating solo with luminous brilliance, soaring melodies, and virtuoso flair. […] At the afterparty, listeners were treated to Berwaerts’s elegant singing voice with the Brel songs ‘Marieke’, ‘Mathilde’, ‘Amsterdam’, and ‘Ne me quitte pas’. In his lovely, warm, and supple baritone, he gave a smooth and polished rendition of the songs.
Helsingin Sanomat, 6/12/2019

He excelled (even as a jazz vocalist) (...) Almost casually, he led [us] cleverly and with a rich vocabulary through the program, which Salaputia Brass played with incredible confidence and passion. (...) Bravissimo!
Augsburger Allegemeine, 8/10/2018, Peter Urban

Played with blazing tone by Jeroen Berwaerts, the Trumpet Sonata emerges with particular brilliance. BBC Music Magazine, March 2015, John Allison

The real stars, though, are athletic trombonist Gérard Costes, and trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts, who combines lyrical warmth with an intensity that is often breathtaking. The Guardian, 22/1/2015, Tim Ashley

After the evening in the Laeiszhalle, the audience was above all spellbound by such beautiful music that was never dull but full of spirit and warmth. The soloist Jeroen Berwaerts made two trumpets and a flugelhorn sing in Gruber’s “Busking” with great virtuosity (…) And then, at the end of the concert, Berwaerts started singing. The synthesis of Rameau dance movements and Brel chansons was inspired. There was nothing unoriginal about the way he lit up the concert hall with Brel’s laconic amazement. Die Welt, 5/6/2014

From the first to the last note, initially playing the mouthpiece followed by different trumpets and flugelhorns, the Belgian trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts was captivating. (…) He negotiated the musical cliffs with an ease and radiance that belied the feat that the soloist achieved through his playing. kulturzeitschrift.at, 5/8/2014, Silvia Thurner

This is how the world might have been created: a muffled, resonating gong tone, from which the muted, infinitely fine sound of the trumpet materialises out of nothing. This is exactly how the eagerly awaited concerto by the Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa begins. He wrote the piece especially for Jeroen Berwaerts. (...) Hosokawa’s walk through the mist, which Berwaerts leads so enchantingly, audibly takes place at the frontier between East and West. Hamburger Abendblatt, 10/3/2014

In Haydn’s trumpet concerto in e-flat minor, Jeroen Berwaerts proved once again that his instrument can do more than play fanfares. When one masters this instrument like Jeroen Berwaerts does, Haydn’s concerto is a pearl - a musical stroke of genius that strikes a perfect balance between soloistic virtuosity and harmonious cooperation. Kölner Zeitung, 25/8/2008