Kevin Houben

Kevin Houben was born in 1977 in Peer, Belgium.  Houben acquired a passion for music from a young age, studying piano and trumpet.

He obtained a master and pedagogical degree in trumpet (with Leon Pétré); a first prize for solfège; a first prize in chamber music pedagogics (with Leo Ouderits), a master in hafabra (with great distinction) and a master in orchestral conducting (with Edmond Saveniers) at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven, Belgium. In addition, he was trained in composition (with Jan Van der Roost and Luc Van Hove) and obtained a first prize in harmony and polyphony.

Since the completion of his studies, Houben’s music has become a favorite in the repertoire of various orchestras in Europe, America, Australia and Japan.

He was the winner of the Sabam prize and audience award at the 2nd Concours International de composition pour orchestre de Comines-Warneton in 2003. He won the first prize at the European EBBA competition in 2006 and the third prize and the audience award during the 2009 edition.

Since the 2015 edition of the Belgian festival Tomorrowland, Houben works with the National Orchestra of Belgium as an orchestrator, e.g. reworking the 'Hymn' composed by Hans Zimmer especially for the festival. He also wrote the orchestrations for 'This was Tomorrow', a film on Tomorrowland, performed by the National Orchestra of Belgium at the Sportpaleis (Antwerpen) in November 2015.

In March 2017, his first Symphony - commissioned by the City of Peer – was premiered by the National Orchestra of Belgium conducted by Dirk Brossé.

Houben is also a renowned conductor, having worked with various professional orchestras and ensembles during recordings and concerts all over the world. At a masterclass in Prague in 2018 he was chosen to conduct the finale of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. In October 2018, he was musical director, with the symphonic orchestra 'La Passione', of the dance performance ‘Le Temps Perdu’ by top choreographer Isabelle Beernaert in Carré (Amsterdam).

On March 17, he won VLOH 2019 (National Championship) with the windband Koninklijke Harmonie Peer with a score of 93,5%. They will defend  the Belgian tricolor during the European Championship for Wind Orchestras - ECWO in 2020 in France.

In June 2019, with a full scholarship offered by WASBE, Kevin followed a specially-designed program at the Los Angeles Conducting Institute (LACI) at Caltech for advanced and developing conductors who seek to clarify their craft and deepen their artistry, with the venerable H. Robert Reynolds as lead teacher and Dr. Glenn Price. 

In 2019 he made the orchestration of the arrangements of Marcel Kaper and Hugo Tromp for artistic director Christophe Van den Branden. He also conducted the symphonic orchestra of Tomorrowland on rehearsels with the original leading vocalist Susana of Armin Van Buuren his track Shivers, as assistent of Maestro Dirk Brossé.

Since 2020 he teaches Orchestration and Instrumentation at LUCA School Of Arts - Campus Lemmens (Belgium) together with Ivan Meylemans.