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Born May 23. 1966, Dirk Schreurs started improvising at the piano at the age of 6.
Having taken a solid classical training at the Music Academy of Neerpelt (Flanders,
Belgium), he graduated summa cum laude.
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 ragtime, 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 the development of "Controlled Language" at the Heriot-
Watt University in Edinburgh (Scotland) and at the Institute of Science and
Technology of the Manchester University (UK). The syntactic and the semantic
aspects of linguistics and improvised music have always been two major points of
interest in the development of his compositional craftmanship and improvising skills.
Moreover, over the years Dirk crossed the path of great musicians such as Enrico
Pieranunzi, Bob Berg, Trilok Gurtu, John Abercrombie, Joey deFrancesco, Jack de
Johnette, Martial Solal, Daniel Goyonne, Reggie Washington, Gene Lake, David
Gilmore, and David Kikoski, all of whom - through their inspiring teachings,
performances and talks - gave spiritual direction to Dirk's dynamic approach to jazz
and improvised music.
Since 1985 he has been on stage and/or at studio sessions across Europe playing
with numerous fine jazz musicians such as Koen, Johan and Peter Vandendriessche,
Fabien Degryse, Bruno Meeus, Michel Hatzigeorgiou, Tony Gyselinck, Piet Verbist,
Yves Baibay, Hugo Bogaerts, Pietro Lacirignola, Jeroen Van Herzeele, Roman
Korolik, Mimi Verderame, Walter Baeken, Jean Borlée, Jan Mues, Lieven Venken,
Eric Surmenian, Werner Lauscher, Frederik Leroux, Nico Schepers, Lydia Van Dam,
Thierry Gutmann, Frank Michiels, Dré Pallemaerts, Herman Pardon, Jan Servaes,
Ron Van Stratum, Bart de Nolf, Christophe DeVisscher, Jean-Louis Rassinfosse,
Henk de Laat, Eric Surmenian, Peter Verhaegen, Frank Deruytter, Carlo Nardozza,
Dieter Limbourg, Robin Verheyen, and many more…
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 and television around
Western Europe. Dirk also received three SABAM for Culture jazz composition
prizes, in 2001, 2002 and 2013. What's more, he composed the music to a unique
video installation by Argentinian visual artist Marta Graciela Bressi. This art project
called Minds of Glass was shown at internationally renowned film and art festivals in Buenos Aires, Los Angeles and New York in 2009. In 2015 he composed “12: the
Prophet – The Zodiac – the SIgnatures”, a cycle of 12 numerological “Berlin, School
of Electronic Music”-style sonic miniatures celebrating the beauty of the Zodiac.
Since 1994 Dirk has been a professor of music, teaching jazzpiano, improvisation
theory, jazz/fusion ensemble, and jazz methodology at the Jazz Department of the
Brussels Royal Conservatory of Music. Nowadays you can find him at jazz clubs,
theaters and on festival stages around Europe sitting in with his acoustic project De
Laat & Schreurs, the New Enrique Tarde Group, Ben Vanderweyden Quartet and the
revival of the legendary Belgian jazz-fusion band Milkshake Banana 2.0.
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