The Belgian composer and pianist Geert Callaert studied at the Lemmens Institute (Leuven, Belgium) and completed his studies there with the seldom awarded diploma Lemmens-Tinel Prize with honours in piano, chamber music, piano accom- paniment, orchestral conducting, advanced musical analysis and composition. His professor of har- mony was Kurt Bikkembergs, he took lessons in counterpoint with Jan Van der Roost and composition with Luc Van Hove. He is a scholarship holder of the Orpheus Institute Ghent and holds a professorship at HOGENT & Howest – KASK & Conservatorium Ghent. He is also a member of the artistic advisory board and a core musician of the HERMESensemble (hermesensemble.be). In 2016, the Union of Belgian Composers awarded him the FUGA Trophee 2015, an award for the performance and promotion of Belgian art music (ucb-ubc.be/historique), with an unanimous vote.

He collaborated during his career with high end fellow ensembles (HERMESensemble, Prometheus Ensemble), orchestras (Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Belgian National Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic) and performers such as Eddy Vanoosthuyse, Koen Kessels, Ed Spanjaard, Michel Tabachnik, Ben Haemhouts, Hervé Joulain, Bert Helsen, Joe Alessi, Joan La Barbara, Elizabeth Laurence, Tim De Maeseneer, Henry Raudales, Glenn Van Looy, Carlo Willems, the Canadian choreographer Edouard Lock, Ilia Laporev, Maximilian Lohse and Jadranka Gasparovic. As a performer he recorded over 30 CDs and DVDs. His name can be found in the credits as a pianist for different international film productions (amon- gst them are Les innocentes – 2016, Director Anne Fontaine, France/ Poland; High Rise – 2015, Director Ben Wheatley, UK; Heojil kyolshim – Decision to Leave – 2022, Director Park Chan-Wook, South-Korea).

Performances and professional encounters with composers such as Charles Wuorinen, Kaija Saariaho, Ivan Fedele, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Dirk Brossé, Luc Ferrari, Gavin Bryars, Konrad Boehmer, Tristan Murail, Marc Yeats, Luc Brewaeys, Wim Henderickx, George De Decker and Michael Sahl have helped him finding his way as a composer. His interest in literature and the visual arts is a source of inspiration for his musical compositions. In addi- tion, his compositions reveal a deep fascination with the First Viennese School and Brahms’ developing varia- tion technique, which have evolved from a new consonant aesthetic to a newer aesthetic of time and sound exploration. His catalogue of works includes instrumental and vocal music. He composes solo and chamber music as well as orchestral music. In the field of vocal music, his oeuvre is mainly devoted to writing madrigals. His works are performed by international artists worldwide and have been recorded on different CDs and DVDs. His work is published by Hofmeister Musikverlag (Leipzig - Germany).