Jeroen Billiet
Jeroen Billiet (b. 1977, Tielt) studied at the Royal Conservatories of Ghent and Brussels with Luc Bergé, where he passed his final horn exam with distinction in 2001. He completed his studies with lessons from Froydis Ree Wekre, and specialised in his great passion: historical instruments with teachers such as Claude Maury and Anthony Halstead. This was followed by a career that took him past the most prominent early music formations: Concerto Köln, i Giardino Armonico, Il Fondamento, l'Orchestre des Champs Elysées, l’Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique and the Irish Baroque Orchestra. From 2002 to 2009, he was solo horn with les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble (Marc Minkowski) and from 2012 to 2018 with Insula Orchestra (Laurence Equilbey).
He is currently a soloist with le Concert d'Astrée (Emanuelle Haim), les Talens Lyriques (Christophe Rousset) and co-principal horn with B'Rock Ghent. As a member of these ensembles, he performed at almost all major European music festivals and realised more than 70 CD and DVD recordings. The Phaedra label released the internationally acclaimed solo CD Fall now blows its horn' in 2010, which brought the lyrical Flemish horn repertoire back into the spotlight. In 2016, a second solo CD Chants d'Amour, featuring works from the Liege and Brussels romantic horn tradition and Johannes Brahms' trio Opus 40, was released by the Terra Nova label. He also specialised in the interpretation of the rich Belgian romantic horn repertoire and gave numerous recitals, lecture-performances and solo concerts in Belgium and abroad.
In June 2008, Jeroen con brio earned the title of Laureate of the Orpheus Institute. He has been a lecturer and department chairman at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp, a researcher and lecturer at KASK &Conservatorium in Ghent and a horn teacher at the Stedelijk Conservatorium in Bruges. In July 2019, Jeroen Billiet, together with his Conservatory colleague Rik Vercruysse, was organiser of the successful 51st International Horn Symposium, attracting more than 700 horn players from 40 different countries to Ghent city centre. The associated street festival Wake the Dragon included breaking the world record for largest horn ensemble of all time during an impressive open-air concert on Ghent's Sint-Baafsplein.
In September 2021, Jeroen Billiet succeeded his former teacher Luc Bergé as principal study teacher of horn at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel (Erasmushogeschool). At the same institute, he has also hold the chair for research in the Department of Orchestral Instruments since 2022.
Jeroen Billiet was awarded the prestigious Punto Award by the of the International Horn Society, in recognition of his international career as a player, teacher and researcher. On 29 March 2021, he obtained his Doctorate in Arts with a historical-artistic study of the Ghent horn tradition during the Belle Epoque at Ghent University.