About Me
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Swerts, Piet (b. November 14, 1960, Tongeren). Belgian composer, conductor and pianist of international acclaim; his large catalogue includes stage, orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal, and piano works.Mr. Swerts studied from 1974-89 at the Lemmensinstituut in Leuven, where he obtained ten first prizes, and also, for the first time in the history of the same institute, the special Prize Lemmens Tinel for composition and piano with great distinction. Since 1982, he is Professor of Composition, Piano and Analysis at the same institute.As a composer, he has received more than ten awards, including the Baron Flor Peeters Prize (1983) for Apocalyps I and the Prize of the Belgian Artistic Promotion (1985) for the song Ardennes. He has also received the SABAM Prize (1986) for Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rotations), which was chosen as an imposed concerto during the finals of the International Queen Elisabeth Competition later that year. His other awards include the Camille Huysmans Composition Prize (1986) for Dreampictures and the Prize for Composition of the Province Limburg (1986) for Capriccio.In addition, he has received the Silver Trophy of the Cultural Youth Passport Belgium-Netherlands (1988) as a promising young artist, the Prize of the Gazet van Antwerpen (newspaper) (1989) for Symphony No. 1 and the Prize for Composition of the Province Brabant (1993) for a choral work.As a composer, he considers himself as autodidactic. Nevertheless, in summer 1981, he participated in a composition course with Witold Lutoslawski and Vladimir Kotonsky in Poland. From 1985, he was conductor of the Ensemble for Contemporary Music at the Institute and since that time, he has mostly worked off the base of commissions.In 1993, his violin concerto Zodiac was selected out of 154 works from 28 countries as the compulsory concerto for the finals of the International Queen Elisabeth Competition for Violin. For this piece, he received the Grand Prix in the International Queen Elisabeth Composition Competition, 1993 (the first Belgian composer to win the prize). Included in the jury at the competition that year were Henryk Górecki and Franco Donatoni.In the same year, a double CD of the world première performance of his Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Marcum for four soloists, chorus and large orchestra (composed in 1988-89 and first performed in 1993) was released. In 1994, the international organization Jaycies awarded him as one of the Ten Outstanding Young People.Mr. Swerts has been invited as a guest-conductor in Austria, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Poland, China, where he conducted the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in 1994 with his own works. In 2006 he conducted the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Caracas, in 2007 he gave a pianorecital in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.In December 1996-January 1997, his first opera Les liaisons dangereuses was premièred by the Flemish Opera (who commissioned it) in Ghent and Antwerp. In the magazine Opera Now (UK), it was hailed as one of the most remarkable events of that particular season. In January 1997, there was a CD release by Eufoda devoted to his piano compositions (1985-95), as recorded by the composer himself.In September 2000, his Symphony No. 2 (Morgenrot)[Label: www.phaedracd.com In Flanders'Fields vol.52] was given its world première to unanimous critical acclaim. In 2005 and 2006 he played his pianoconcerto Wings in the United States of America in Oregon and Texas.Currently he is working on a oratorio based on the Canticles.
