Tom Pauwels

Born 1974 in Bornem/Belgium.

Tom Pauwels studied classical guitar in Bornem, Brussels/Belgium, Cologne/Germany and Münster/Germany with Dirk De Hertogh, Albert Sundermann, Hubert Käppel, and Reinbert Evers respectively. In 1995, during his studies at the Brussels Conservatory, he was involved in the founding of Black Jackets Company, a Brussels collective of composers and performers. Ever since these early experiments he has been active in the field of contemporary music, both on classical and electric guitar. From 1999 until 2001 he was a regular member of Champ D’Action, the Antwerp-based ensemble for experimental music. Since 2002 he has been working as a performer and co-artistic advisor for the new music ensemble ICTUS (Brussels). Project-wise, he performs with Champ D’Action, the Anglo-Belgian octet Plus-Minus and Elastic 3, a trio with Eva Reiter and Paolo Pachini. He has recorded works by Craenen, Lachenmann, Shlomowitz, Van Eycken and for Cyprès (Ictus), works by Oehring, Harada, Romitelli and Aperghis. After a five year research project on new music for guitar he became a Laureate of the Orpheus Institute with the thesis De Echo van ‘t Saluut (his advisor was Jan Michiels). Since 2005 he has been in charge of teaching new music for guitar at the Conservatory of Gent/Belgium. His broad interest in performance has recently led to a collaboration with choreographer Xavier Le Roy.

From 2013 to 2015, Tom Pauwels is juror for music/sound at the Akademie Schloss Solitude together with Jean-Luc Plouvier.