Applause academic year 2025-2026

Leading and supporting roles, debut and compilation albums, finalist spots, beginner's luck, and career awards... here you can read about who recently received applause and why in the 2025-2026 academic year.

Jazz

• Four stars for the album “Time Change” by the Milan Verbist Trio in De Standaard! In addition to Milan, the trio also consists of alumni Toon Rumen (bass) and Jens Meijer (drums).
• Four stars in De Standaard for Steiger's new album, “Mowglowski's First Take”. Steiger consists of alumni Simon Raman and Kobe Boon, together with Gilles Vandecaveye-Pinoy.
• The nominees for the MIAs have been announced! In the “Musicians” category, there are two alumni from the Antwerp Conservatoire: Jo Hermans (classical music, trumpet) and Klaas De Somer (jazz, drums).
• The Time of Our Singing – Opera in Three Acts by Kris Defoort is on the longlist for the Grammys in the “Opera Recording” category. You can hear bass teacher Nicolas Thys on that recording.
• Jazz vocal studies alumna Tamara Mozes recently started teaching master's students in vocal studies at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles.
• Jazz teacher Barbara Wiernik has released her new album Between Whispers. The release marks a special and significant moment in her artistic career as a musician.
• Jazz alumnus Rune De Groote announced the release of RDG Trio's debut album “Echoes of Our Name”, which will be released on 27 February. The album was recorded in collaboration with other old acquaintances: Emiel Verneert (trumpet), Miel De Koninck (piano) and Wolf De Backer (double bass).
• Yentl Verborgt released the EP Indigo. Yentl is a Jazz singing alumna and Jazz teacher of vocal studies at the Educational Master's in Music and Performing Arts. She presented her EP during a delightful concert at the Singer in Rijkevorsel. Yentl also had the opportunity to talk about it on Wednesday 7 January with Cara Van der Auwera on Klara.
   

Classical Music

• Pianist-composer and teacher Mathias Coppens will take up his post as the new director of the Festival of Flanders Mechelen/Kempen on September 1. He will continue to teach in the Music programme.
• Federico La Rosa (M1 Flute student) has been awarded second place on the reserve list for the symphony orchestra of Matera, Basilicata, Italy.
• Laurens Romboud (3rd bachelor tuba) recently won the audition for the Regimentsfanfare Garde Grenadiers en Jagers, where he will now start working as a reservist.
• Gitte Bongaers, Maria Leiva Sepúlveda, Itay Shamir, and Meadhbh Ní Ruairc were all selected for the final of the Concorso Severino Gazzelloni in Naples! We will find out the results on September 26.
• Violinist and alumnus Abraham Constantino Noguera was honored in Huelva, Spain, for his impressive career at our school and with the National Orchestra of Belgium.
• Alumna Natalia Gladkowska (recently graduated) has been appointed flute soloist at the Filharmonia Dolnośląska in Jelenia, Poland.
• Giulia Bellotti, piccolo master's student, won the audition for solo flute/piccolo with the Bundespolizeiorchester München.
• The new season of the vocal studies department of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel has started. Alumna Vocal Studies Fleur Strijbos is one of the participants.
• Viola student Teresa Macedo Ferreira won the biggest Portuguese music competition last week and is now officially “Young Portuguese Artist of the Year”.
• Julita Burzynska won the position of principal flutist in the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra.
• Emma Wils, alumna Guitar, released her first album! The album is called Serenades of Spain.
• Orchestral conducting alumnus Michiel Delange is conducting two opera productions at La Monnaie this season, with big names on and off the stage. In addition, his ensemble deCompagnie, which he leads together with teacher Mathias Coppens, is touring with Faust, a co-production with De Maan and Theater Arsenaal (featuring Koen De Graeve, among others), with more than twenty performance(s) in Flanders. Under his direction, the International Opera Academy is also collaborating on Così fan tutte this season, with performances at the Bourla.
• Flávia Valente was selected for a temporary position as flute/piccolo with the Sinfonieorchester Basel.
• Samantha Arbogast won the audition for piccolo solo with the French La Musique des Transmissions.
• Teacher and researcher Ewald Demeyere was invited to be a keynote speaker at Indiana University in the United States. Following his earlier workshop on partimento at the Juilliard School in New York, this new invitation is further international recognition of his work.
• Tuba student Rodrigo Cardoso was selected for an internship/academy with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra in the Czech Republic — a wonderful international opportunity!
• Tuba student Fons Dobbelaere was selected for the National Youth Orchestra of Belgium!
• Brassband Willebroek once again took first place at Vlamo's Brass Band Championship! Together with Festival Brassband (second place), they will soon be participating in the European Championship in Stavanger. RCA is well represented in both brass bands!
• Flute student from Aldo Baerten's class, Klēra Kuļikauska, won second prize at the Flauta Aurea international competition in Croatia!
• Marcin Kosiorowski, flute student, won second prize in Category I of the 3rd Eugeniusz Towarnicki International Flute Competition for Students in Łódź (4–7 November 2025).
• EDU (music) student Tibault De Bondt won first prize in the Willeboek Solo Contest in the +19 age category.
• Toon Quanten, a student in the Master of Music and Performing Arts Education programme, is the new Art Educator in Residence 2026, the talent development programme of the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp with DE SINGEL and Musica Impulscentrum.
• Teacher Jeroen Malaise released a new album. ‘West Bank Echoes’ became a musical diary of Jeroen's travels to the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Sebastian Enriques, a former accordion student, has been selected as a Young Talent at Prima La Musica, led by Dirk Brossé. As part of the programme, he will attend one-to-one workshops and perform as a soloist at De Bijloke on 7 December, where he will perform Richard Galliano's Opale Concerto.
• Alumnus Lars Corijn was selected as the new assistant conductor of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester under the direction of chief conductor Michael Sanderling.
• Saxophone student Ties Van Echelpoel won the audience award in the final of Young Belgian Talent 2025!
• Students and former students of vocal studies Anna Dehaene, Katelijne Malomgré, Thomas Vandenabeele and Miguel Vasconcelos collaborated on reconstructing the forgotten story of the Lier tower singer Frans Boschmans. This culminated in a concert at St Gummarus Church in Lier. You can watch the entire report on YouTube. Very nice to see!
• Principal subject teacher Ludwig Albert and marimba students Subin Ku, Francesco Miranda and Oleksandra Makarova performed during the IPEW International Percussion Ensemble Week Festival in Bjelovar (Croatia). Their concert with the RCA marimba ensemble was one of the highlights of the international festival and was greatly appreciated by the audience and fellow musicians.
• Nadar Ensemble was elected Cultural Ambassador 2026-2027 of Sint-Niklaas. The artistic director of the ensemble is teacher Pieter Matthynssens. Teacher Nico Couck is the ensemble's guitarist.
• Former teacher Eliane Rodrigues looks back and ahead in a delightful interview for Klassiek Centraal.
• Alumna piano Katleen Verreth, who graduated in 2005, has given her career a wonderful new direction and recently published her first children's book, Felix.
• The performance Four Seasons Changed premiered successfully at DE SINGEL with the BRYGGEN string orchestra conducted by teacher Jolente De Maeyer. The orchestra plays entirely from memory and follows the choreography of Michiel Vandevelde, who brings dance and music together in an innovative interpretation of Richter's reworking of Vivaldi.
• Alumni Hans Vercauteren and Lente Verelst wrote the chamber opera Somer & Winter for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, a VONK production for the children's choir. With vocals in Middle Dutch by Kris Belligh and alumna Lissa Meyvis, lyrics by alumnus Thomas Janssens and accompaniment by Spectra Ensemble.
   

Drama

• Both Flor Nelissen's and Emma Van Haastert's podcasts have been nominated for the annual NTR podcast award. Be sure to listen and vote, of course. Perhaps they will follow in the footsteps of alumna Media, writing and performance art Winter De Cock, who won last year with her audio work (baar)moeder.
• Reinhilde Decleir becomes the 25th Maestro Honoris Causa! Read all about it here.
• Alumna Music creation and performance art Julia Rosenhart has written new music. Available to watch and listen to via your favourite music channels from 12 September.
• Emma Rotsaert, alumna of Music creation and performance art, plays a leading role in the new series “How to kill your Sister”. She talks about her acting and her music in Focus Knack.
• Masters of Media, writing and performance art Louise Anthonissen and David Weel are guests at CHAOS, the Podcast Festival, on 28 September in Tolhuis Amsterdam.
• Louise Anthonissen and David Weel (alumni Drama-Media, writing and performance art) have been nominated for the Flemish podcast awards, or the Oorkondes, in the Story category for their final project Als ik morgen doodga(If I die tomorrow). The award ceremony will take place on Friday 7 November in Ostend!
• Chloë Onyinye, alumna Acting, shines as Judit in Judit zkt at Het Nieuwstedelijk. And we're not the only ones who think so. The reviews are rave!
• Alumnus Acting Francis Geeraerts is playing in Family, the new show by Louis Janssen. Excellent reviews here too!
• In October, FC Bergman's new production Guernica Guernica kicked off a series at the Toneelhuis.
• The FC Bergman theatre company consists of actors and theatre makers who met during our drama programme. Unfortunately, it's too late to get tickets now. Everything is sold out.
• Alumnus Media, writing and performance art and educational master's student Sander Deckx saw a new performance premiere with Speels Collectief. “Content Warning: weinig prikkels” (Content Warning: few stimuli) is currently only playing in the Netherlands.
• Prince K Appia, alumnus Acting, was a guest on “Niks te Zien” (Nothing to See) on VRT. A really nice episode, available to watch on VRT Max.
• On 21 November, the eleventh VWS Oeuvre Prize will be awarded in the Gothic Hall of Bruges City Hall. This year, the prize goes to writer and Media, writing and performance art teacher Lara Taveirne. In October, the reworking of her debut novel was also published, now under the title “Meisjes van Krijt” (Girls of Chalk).
• Patricia Beysens, former artistic coordinator of the Music, Creation & Performance Art programme, has released a new album. “Fantasie von übermorgen” is a compilation album full of German chansons with the GDR as the common thread.
• New performance for Compagnie Gérard (drama alumni Mil Sinaeve and Tibbe Walkiers, together with Mokhallad Rasem & Aster Henderieckx). Speel niet speelgoed (Don't play with toys) is a performance about displacement and conflict tailored to children and will be performed for more than 1,000 sixth-graders in the Kazemat in Ypres.
• “Een vlam Tasmaanse tijgers” (A Flame Tasmanian Tigers) by teacher within Verhalen&Maken Charlotte Van den Broeck wins the Boekenbon Literature Prize, one of the three major literary prizes in Dutch.
• On Friday 24 October, recent graduate and cabaret artist Simon Mitxelena presented his second album in a packed Roma. “Als het Neerstort” has been available to listen to everywhere since 17 October. Simon also collaborated on the new version of Alle Kleuren for the benefit of 11.11.11.
• Acting alumna Joke Emmers plays her first leading role in a daily fiction series in “Florentina”. She talks extensively in Humo about her time at the Conservatoire, among other things.
• Drama teacher Anne-Laure Vandeputte announced new performances of My Body As a Commodity. De Standaard tipped the performance as a Must See last weekend.
• On 1 April, Monty Sneeuwpanter will premiere, the latest performance by teachers Mokhallad Rasem and Kuno Bakker, which also features Drama student Bloeme Feyaerts.
• Alumnus Media, Writing & Performance Art Hans Depelchin has been shortlisted for the Boon Literature Prize with his most recent novel (de rode koe).
• Alumnus Johannes Wirix-Speetjens steps into the shoes of several iconic queers from music history in his theatre production Classical Queers, the successor to the Klara podcast. The premiere will take place on 19 February 2026 in Arenberg, after which he will tour Belgium and the Netherlands.

Dance

• Master's student in Dance Héctor Espuela Pablo breathed new life into the story of Sleeping Beauty in The Making of a Lethargy, which can be seen at the Monty from mid-October.
• Bachelor Dance alumna Marah Haj is currently touring with her performance Language: no broblem, which has also been selected for the Theaterfestival in Ghent and the prestigious Theaterprijzen. We will find out how that turns out on September 9.
  • She won the award in the category 'Actors -35'!
• Bachelor Dance alumni in dance Emily Jane Steele, Lluna Galarza Serra, Olivia Busquets Moreu, and Tomàs Gispert Jiménez (humanECHOs) were in residence at Schouwburg Noord last summer, where they presented their final results in August.
• Bachelor Dance student Sam Hawkes was selected for A Night Called Quest, the presentation festival of the Antwerp Queer Arts Festival and De Studio, which took place in August 2025.
• Alumni Dan Musset, Maisie Woodford, Pierre Bastin, and Florence Lenon will dance in Jan Martens' THEDOGDAYS ARE OVER 2.0 this coming season.
• Third-year Bachelor Dance students Elsa Chantre and Noémie Hà were awarded internships at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in Jan Martens' production ‘de Materie’.
• In October, teacher Tuur Marinus was in Macau for the Chinese premiere of two of his performance(s): “Still Animals” and “TH LNG GDBY”. TH LNG GDBY is the artistic outcome of the two-year research project “Choreographing Potentialities of Collectivity” that Tuur carried out several years ago through CORPoREAL.

• The dance performance EVEN WEG, inspired by the physical and emotional intensity of epilepsy, is on tour. Created and danced by alumni Sandrine Wouters and Manon Campion, it is almost completely sold out everywhere.