Trumpet
Belgian trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts is a musical powerhouse whose all-encompassing love for music knows no genre boundaries. Highly esteemed worldwide for his exceptional technical skills and sensitive musicality, he explores repertoire spanning all eras, from Baroque to contemporary music and jazz.
As a soloist, Jeroen Berwaerts has performed with leading orchestras including the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Het Residentie Orkest, Belgian National Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra and Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg. He has collaborated with conductors such as Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding, Markus Stenz, Jun Märkl, Paavo Järvi, Jaap van Zweden and Matthias Pintscher. He is a regular guest at internationally renowned festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, BBC Proms, Takefu International Music Festival in Japan, Domaine Forget International Festival in Canada, Ars Musica in Belgium, Heidelberg Spring, and Rheingau Musik Festival.
In the 2025/26 season, Jeroen Berwaerts will premiere a new trumpet concerto composed for him by Britta Byström with the Camerata Bern in October. He will also perform Shostakovich's Opus 35 alongside Alexander Melnikov in his debut with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, and alongside Igor Levit and Alexander Lonquich with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Vienna Musikverein, the Elbphilharmonie and the Philharmonie Berlin. Guest engagements will also take him back to the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bochum Symphony Orchestra.
Jeroen Berwaerts is known for reinvigorating the standard trumpet repertoire by placing it in dramaturgically sophisticated, unusual contexts. For instance, he can be heard playing Francaix's Sonatine and Enescu's Légende alternating with jazz standards interpreted by his jazz quartet. Occasionally, he also takes on the vocal part – parallel to his rapid career as a trumpeter, he completed a degree in jazz singing at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent.
His extraordinary commitment to contemporary music is evident in numerous world premieres, He is the second trumpeter worldwide to include HK Gruber's extremely virtuoso composition Busking in his repertoire. In 2019, Jeroen Berwaerts premiered Tobias Broström's double concerto for two trumpets, Nigredo: The Dark Night of the Soul, together with Håkan Hardenberger. His most important premieres also include Francesco Filidei's Carnevale, Vito Žuraj's Le fou triste and Toshio Hosokawa's trumpet concerto Im Nebel.
He recorded the latter on CD in June 2024 together with the Residentie Orkest under Jun Märkl. Prior to that, he appeared as a trumpeter, jazz vocalist and ensemble leader on the album Signals from Heaven, produced in 2017 with the Salaputia Brass ensemble.
Jeroen Berwaerts studied with the renowned trumpet virtuoso Reinhold Friedrich in Karlsruhe. Since 2008, he has served as Professor of Trumpet at the Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media. He is also Professor in Residence at the Royal Academy of Music in London and an official Yamaha Artist.
2025/26 season
