Music takes me from nowhere to now here

BIOGRAPHY

Dirk Schreurs started playing the piano at the age of 6. Having taken a solid classical training at the Music Academy of Neerpelt (Flanders), he graduated with the highest academic distinction. At the age of 15 he sat in with R&B-giants such as Bob Hall, Dave Peabody and the Deluxe Blues Band at the Belgian Folk & Blues festival, playing blues, boogie-woogie and gospel piano. At the European Youth Music Festival (1984) the Dutch Television (NOS) recorded Dirk’s performance of the jazz-musical “On the town” scored by Leonard Bernstein.

In 1989 Dirk graduated as a Master in Germanic Philology at the Catholic University of Louvain. For three years he worked as a scientific researcher in the field of Computational Linguistics at the Linguistics Department of the Louvain Faculty of Arts. He gave lectures on “Controlled Language” at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and at the Institute of Science and Technology of the Manchester University. The syntactic and the semantic aspects of linguistics and improvised music are still two of his major points of interest.

Moreover, Dirk came into contact with Enrico Pieranunzi, Trilok Gurtu, John Abercrombie, Jack de Johnette, Martial Solal, Daniel Goyonne, and David Kikoski, all of whom gave spiritual direction to his dynamic search for jazz and improvised music. He has composed and arranged over 250 tunes, many of which have found their way not only to the performing stage but also to the realm of radio & television around Europe. Next to playing the acoustic piano and electro-acoustic keyboards, Dirk also operates vintage synthesizers and analog modules.

The Belgian Artistic Promotion of SABAM selected "The Void" to be the award winning composition at the 2001 Hoeilaart International Jazz Contest. One year later, the Belgian Artistic Promotion of SABAM selected "Eva" to be the award winning composition at the 2002 Hoeilaart International Jazz Contest.

Since 1994 Dirk has been a professor of music, teaching piano, improvisation theory, ensemble and jazz methodology at the Jazz Department of the Brussels Royal Conservatory of Music.

DISCOGRAPHY

1994 Beyond Ballads - Dirk Schreurs & Walter Baeken
1998 Live! - Triassic Jazz
2000 Extemporizations - Dirk Schreurs solo piano
2003 Berlin - Scora
2006 Minds of Glass - Dirk Schreurs
2008 Imagine Mars - Scora
2009 Strokes - Scora

GEAR

Rhodes 73 MK I electric piano
Wurlitzer A200 electric piano
Yamaha S90 expanded synthesizer
Korg CX-3 combo organ
Yamaha CP stage piano
Yamaha stagepass 500
Yamaha AW1600 professional audio workstation

MY MUSIC PLAYER

"24 hours before midnight" was recorded live with the Roman Korolik Group at the 2008 Motives for Jazz festival in Genk (Belgium).

"Rhythm of the Essence" is a track from my solo album "Minds of Glass".(2006).

"Stuck" is a track from the CD "Imagine Mars", which I recorded with Scora (featuring Walter Baeken on saxophone) in the summer of 2008. We did a tour in Russia.

"Extemporization IV" is an intimate improvised moment taken from my live piano solo album "Extemporizations" (2000). It is dedicated to the beauty of life itself.

"All blues" is my personal musical approach to the classic Miles Davis tune, which I recorded here with my trio, called Triassic Jazz (1998). This Belgian trio features Roman Korolik on bass and Bruno Meeus on drums.

Enjoy!