Luc Ponet
The Belgian organist Luc Ponet is curator and consultant for the Organ Festival and related policy in the city of Leuven. He is organist-titular of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Tongeren, organist-in-residence of the Land Commandery Alden Biesen, the European cultural centre of the Flemish government, and musical director of the Bach Collegium Alden Biesen. Furthermore, he is the inspector of art education (academies of music and conservatories) for the Flemish community.
He made his international debut as a concert organist in Paris and Warsaw in 1982. He went on to develop a multifaceted international career as an organist, conductor, professor (Lemmens Institute Leuven) and visiting professor (Concordia University in River Forest – Chicago, among others).
A broad-based study programme at the Lemmens Institute, College of Music in Leuven (organ class of Chris Dubois), further studies under Prof. Dr. Hans Haselböck at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna and master classes from, among others, Flor Peeters, Marie-Claire Alain, Montserrat Torrent, Ewald Kooiman and Harald Vogel have all contributed to what he is today: a musician with a broad range, enjoying worldwide fame for his concerts, lectures and master classes. Luc Ponet is an exponent of more then five centuries of organ music: from the Middle Ages to premières of contemporary music and improvisations. He regularly works with renowned soloists, ensembles, orchestras, jazz musicians, dancers, actors and visual artists.
Over the years he has recorded several CDs and has published a number of books and articles in specialist journals about organs and the organist’s art.
At the Faculty of Architecture and the Arts of the University Leuven, drs. Luc Ponet prepares a doctoral degree with a dissertation on performance practice and the organist’s art in the prince bishopric of Liège during the first half of the 17th century.