Tom De Cock

(short biography)

Tom De Cock (°1982) received his masters degree in percussion at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels (2005), as well as a masters degree in contemporary music at the HFMDK Frankfurt am Main (2007), Germany. In 2009, he graduated “summa cum laude” at the HFM Detmold in the Konzertexamen degree and obtained his "Doctor of Arts" degree at the VUB and Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel in 2015. He received the Horlait Dapsens prize in 2007.
Next to his position as percussion soloist at the Brussels Philharmonic orchestra, Tom has been working as a freelance musician in Europe, he played with Ensemble Modern, MusikFabrik, Radio Kamer Philharmonie, among others and is a fixed member of Ictus, Nadar Ensemble, Triatu, and Ensemble XII.
He performed at festivals such as Agora Paris, Internationale Ferienkurse Darmstadt, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Klangspuren Schwaz, Bang on a Can NY, Ars Musica, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, etc. Tom has collaborated with Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Philippe Hurel, Bruno Mantovani, Philippe Manoury, Georges Aperghis and many other prominent figures of international contemporary music.
At the moment, Tom is working as the assistant percussion teacher at Conservatoire Royal de Liège.

(extended biography)

Studies

2005: Master percussion Cum Laude at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, in the class of Gert François and Bart Quartier.
2006 and 2007: Stipendium at IEMA (“Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie”, Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt am Main). “Master in Contemporary Music” at the “Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst”, Frankfurt am Main.
2005 à 2008: Invitation to the Lucerne Festival Academy, under the direction of Pierre Boulez.
2009: Konzertexamen Summa Cum Laude in the class of Peter Prommel at the “Hochschule  für Musik” Detmold (Germany)
2015: "Doctor of Arts" at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel

Professional Parcours

Collaborations
Solo percussionist at Brussels Philharmonic.
Collaborated with numerous European ensembles and orchestras: Radio Kamer Philharmonie (NL) under the direction of Peter Eötvös, Ensemble Modern (D), Ictus Ensemble (B), Musikfabrik (D), Ensemble Court-Circuit (F), Spectra Ensemble (B), Collectief (B), Oxalys (B), la Monnaie/de Munt (B), etc.
Fixed member of Ictus (>ICTUS : website), Nadar Ensemble (>NADAR ENSEMBLE : website), and of the percussion trio Triatu (>TRIATU : website)

Stages
Tom De Cock performed at prestigeous international festivals like: Festival Agora (Paris), Bang on a Can (NY), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (GB), Wien Modern, Klangspuren Schwaz, Ultrashall and Maerzmusik (Berlin), Donaueshinger Musiktage, Internationale Ferienkurse Darmstadt, Eclat (Stuttgart), Lucerne Festival, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Tel Aviv Biennale, etc.
Professional encounters
Tom De Cock premiered works of, and collaborated closely with amongst others: Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Georges Aperghis, Philippe Hurel, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Martin Matalon, Philippe Schoeller, Dai Fujikura, Liza Lim, Yann Robin, Yann Maresz, Vassos Nicolau, David Fennessy, Simon Steen-Andersen, Eduardo Moguillansky, Raphael Cendo.

Pedagogical experience and research

2006: Assistant in the percussion class of Peter Prommel at the “Hochschule  für Musik " Detmold (Germany).
2006 up to now: Invitations to do master classes and workshops at the Conservatoria of Oslo, Amsterdam and Tilburg and at the “Hochschule  für Musik” Detmold and Frankfurt am Main.
2011 up to 2016: Research assistant and doctoral student at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel and VUB.
2016  up to now: Assistant percussion teacher at the Conservatoire Royal de Liège

Prices

2000: Laureate of the Axion Classics Compettion.
2007: Laureate of the Prix Horlait-Dapsens.

Languages

Mother tongue: Dutch. Good to very good knowledge of French, English and German.