Bart Verheyen (Lier, BE) is a Belgian musician. At a young age, he won numerous organ, piano and composition prizes at home and abroad, including a grant from the Flemish Government (YoTaM) and first prize organ at the national Axion Classics competition. He first studied piano at the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels (with Piet Kuijken, Aleksandr Madzar and Boyan Vodenitcharov). At the Hochschule für Musik Luzern (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 with the maximum score in 2014, as well as his organ studies at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp with Joris Verdin in 2020. In 2019, his organ playing won him the Prix d'Or of the first Paris Music Competition. He took 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, among others, at the Lucerne Festival Academy and the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel.
His repertoire ranges from renaissance to contemporary music on both organ and piano. In his programmes, he often interweaves works from different style periods into a cohesive whole and plays his own arrangements and compositions. In spring 2021, he composed the organ music and soundscape for the theatrical installation Captain Nemo, with actor Peter de Graef as Nemo. Captain Nemo is the first production of NARWAL, a (t)house for musical installations and performances, which Bart founded together with author and child and adolescent psychiatrist Winny Ang. Commissioned by the Contius Foundation, he composed A Child of Books, a full-length work for 3 choirs and organ, which will premiere at the International Organ Festival Haarlem in July 2024. Based on Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston's book of the same name about the power of imagination, the work gathers more than 100 children and young people around the organ. He also likes to stir up forgotten music - for instance, he researched music by Lieven Duvosel, published about it in the magazine Orgelkunst and played concerts with his music. He likes to explore unexpected combinations and, together with flamenco dancer Elena La Grulla, presents the programme FANDANGO! with keyboard music by Scarlatti, Soler and others.
Bart is very active as a chambrist. 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 arranged many creations 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 creation took place in the Rosengart Museum Lucerne, surrounded by masterpieces by Paul Klee).
Bart has played concerts for Bozar, Concertgebouw Brugge, the Bijloke, Festival of Flanders, Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, Antwerp Cathedral, Les Jardins Musicaux, Lucerne Festival, Muziekgebouw aan't IJ, Salzburg Biennale and Tonhalle Zurich, among others, and has been heard on national radio and television in several 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 praised by the press. In Crescendo Magazine we read:
"... the second Choral, of which Bart Verheyen delivers one of the most lively and intelligent readings we have ever heard. There, agogic suppleness serves the dramatic phrasing with as much freedom as precision, entirely at the service of eloquence."
Bart taught Piano at the Hochschule für Musik Luzern, Lied at the Royal Conservatoire Brussels, and has been a teacher at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp since 2017. From September 2024, he will take over the torch there from Joris Verdin as principal study teacher of organ. He also leads a piano class at the Academy of Borgerhout (Antwerp).