Bert Koch - Piano
Ann Geerts
Bert Koch (°1986) is a Belgian pianist, mostly active as a chamber musician. He already concertized in a lot of Belgian concert halls such as the Flagey in Brussels, the Academy Hall in Sint-Truiden, the Lemmens Institute in Leuven, the Concert Hall of the Brussels Conservatory, the Concert Hall in Bruges, AMUZ in Antwerp and a diverse range of cultural centres. Moreover, he was a guest at different festival and cultural days as IedereenKlassiek (Bruges), Cultuurmarkt (Antwerp), KlaraFestival (Brussels), BumaClassical (Utrecht) and Festival van Vlaanderen (Kortrijk).
As a pianist he made recordings for radio stations Musiq3, Klara, Radio 4 (NL) and he was a host at television stations Cultuur7 and Canvas. As a soloist he performed the third and fourth piano concerto of Ludwig von Beethoven with the Limburg Orkest Jeugd en Muziek and the Symfonieorkest Lemmensinstituut. Beethoven is a composer which is of great importance to him. Bert is active as a pianist-accompanist and a teacher accompaniment at the Stedelijke Academie voor Kunsten Maaseik. Every year he accompanies the Vlamo soloists competition.
His discography consists of the cd Mockingbird (2015) with music by Wilfried Westerlinck, the cd Fingerprints 2 (2016) in collaboration with ComAV and Radio Klara and the cd Timelapse, the debute cd of the Kugoni Trio. This extraordinary trio (piano – saxophone – violin) was established in the Royal Conservatory in Brussels in 2010. The trio is a very welcome guest on national and international stages and was the first prize winner of Supernova (2013) and Forte (2015).
Bert cooperated in numerous creations of works from prominent composers such as Jan-Hendrik Van Damme, Paul Steegmans, Jeroen d’Hoe, Benjamien Lycke, Erik Desimpelaere, Wilfried Westerlinck, Hanne Deneire and Jan Van Landeghem. He used to compose a lot of works in which he showed his preference for the variation series. His work Thema met variaties in fis for piano was awarded in 2002 for the Aquarius-composers competition in the Concert Hall in Bruges.
In 2011 Bert achieved his Master of Arts in Music with the highest distinction in the class of Jan Vermeulen at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven. In June 2012 he also completed a post graduate piano accompaniment in the Royal Conservatory Brussels with great distinction. He followed master classes with a.o. Leon Fleisher, Norma Fisher, Paul Komen, Tamara Poddubnava, Bart van de Roer, André De Groote, Nata Tsvereli, Rian de Waal and Bart van Oort.