Bart Verheyen is a Belgian organist, pianist and composer. At a young age, he won numerous organ, piano and composition prizes at home and abroad, including a scholarship from the Flemish Government (YoTaM) and first prize for organ at the Axion Classics national competition. He first studied piano at the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels (with Piet Kuijken, Aleksandr Madzar and Boyan Vodenitcharov). At the Lucerne School of Music (CH), he specialised in contemporary keyboard music with Florian Hoelscher and in classical piano repertoire with Konstantin Lifschitz, after winning a Swiss state scholarship (ESKAS). He completed his studies there in 2014 with the highest possible score, as he did his organ studies at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp with Joris Verdin in 2020. In 2019, he won the Prix d'Or at the first Paris Music Competition with his organ playing and in 2025 the Schoonbroodt Prize of the King Baudouin Foundation.
He has taken international masterclasses with Helmut Deutsch, Julius Drake, Bernard Foccroulle, Hartmut Höll, Ton Koopman, Alexei Lubimov, Benoît Mernier, Heime Müller (Artemis Quartet), Heinrich Schiff, Gerhard Schulz (Alban Berg Quartet), Roger Vignoles and Harald Vogel at the Lucerne Festival Academy and the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, among others. His repertoire ranges from Renaissance to contemporary music on both organ and piano. In his programmes, he often interweaves works from different stylistic periods into a coherent whole and plays his own arrangements and compositions.
He is a founding partner of NARWAL, a home for musical installations and storytelling. He composed the organ music and soundscape for the theatrical installation Kapitein Nemo, a first production by NARWAL with actor Peter de Graef as Nemo. On assignment from the Contius Foundation, he composed A Child of Books, a full-length work for three choirs and organ, which was premiered to great acclaim in July 2024 by the National Choirs of the Netherlands and organist Laurens de Man at the International Organ Festival Haarlem. The work is based on the book of the same name by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston about the power of imagination and brings together more than 100 children and young people around the organ.
Bart also likes to unearth forgotten music - he researched the music of Lieven Duvosel, published an article about it in the magazine Orgelkunst and gave concerts featuring his music. He enjoys exploring unexpected combinations and, together with flamenco dancer Elena La Grulla, presents the programme FANDANGO! with keyboard music by Scarlatti and Soler, among others. Bart is very active as a chamber musician. He has given concerts with the ensembles Collegium Novum Zürich, Ensemble Mendelssohn, I Solisti and Oxalys and has a regular song duo with soprano Katrien Baerts. He has performed many premieres and collaborated with composers Oscar Bianchi, Chaya Czernowin, Beat Furrer, Blaise Ubaldini and Gérard Zinsstag, and with conductors Martijn Dendievel, Emilio Pomárico, David Robertson, Peter Rundel, Jonathan Stockhammer, Jeffrey Tate and Ronald Zollman (including as soloist in piano concertos by Martinu, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky).
Composer Frederik Neyrinck dedicated his piano cycle Klee Miniatüre to him (the premiere took place in the Rosengart Museum Luzern, surrounded by masterpieces by Paul Klee). Bart has played concerts for Amuz, Bozar, Concertgebouw Brugge, De Bijloke, Festival van Vlaanderen, Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, Antwerp Cathedral, Les Jardins Musicaux, Lucerne Festival, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ, Salzburg Biennale and Tonhalle Zürich, among others, and has been heard on national radio and television in various European countries. His first solo recording of César Franck's 12 major organ works for the Musique en Wallonie label, in collaboration with organists Joris Verdin and Cindy Castillo, was received with critical acclaim. Crescendo Magazine writes: '... the second Choral, of which Bart Verheyen delivers one of the most lively and intelligent readings we have ever heard. The agogic flexibility serves the dramatic phrasing with equal freedom and precision, entirely at the service of expressiveness.' Bart taught piano at the Lucerne School of Music, song at the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels, and has been a teacher at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp since 2017.
In September 2024, he took over from Joris Verdin as principal study teacher of organ. He also teaches a piano class at the academy in Borgerhout (Antwerp) and is regularly asked to sit on juries.