Gerard Willems
Gerard Willems is Australia’s pre-eminent Beethoven interpreter and one of its finest concert pianists. His love affair with the piano began in the early fifties in Holland. There, at the age of 8, he was awarded a professorial scholarship in pianoforte shortly before migrating with his family to Australia. He spent his early life in his new country in a migrant camp where he continued his musical studies. Willems graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, won the distinguished Queen Victoria Piano Competition, then pursued advanced keyboard studies in Germany.
After performing throughout Europe, he returned home in 1981 to join the keyboard staff at his Alma Mater, the Sydney Conservatorium, becoming senior lecturer and, until recently, Chair of the Keyboard Unit. He has dedicated his life to teaching young musicians by giving countless masterclasses across the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
He has toured extensively and his concerto repertoire ranges from the classical works of Mozart and Beethoven through to 20th century works of Bernstein and Gershwin. Between 1997 and 2000, Gerard Willems recorded Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas (for ABC Classics), becoming the first Australian to do so. The internationally acclaimed recordings, which feature the Australian-designed Stuart & Sons pianos, won two ARIA Awards giving Willems the honour of becoming the first pianist to win the prestigious award.
In 2000, he won the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Australian Musical Scholarship, the same year he toured Israel and held the Hepzibah Menuhin Chair in piano as Visiting Professor at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem. The following year he researched Early Music training in Europe and the United States before returning to Sydney to become the first Australian to record Beethoven’s 5 piano concertos (for ABC Classics). This recording included a DVD of the Emperor Concerto that won the International DVD Association’s Award for Music Excellence in 2005. He has also recorded a wide variety of Mozart’s works including the complete Piano Trios.
In 2010, Willems completed his 15-year Beethoven odyssey with the recording of the Diabelli Variations, again using a Stuart & Sons piano.
Gerard Willems has been awarded a Centenary Medal for Services to Music. He lives in Sydney and is Associate Professor in the Keyboard Unit at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.