Sebastian Huydts

Sebastian Huydts (b.1966) studied piano in Amsterdam with Edith Lateiner Grosz at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In addition, he took post-graduate classes with Rian de Waal. He participated in piano master classes with György Sebök, Stephen Bishop, and Earl Wild, and took Chamber Music lessons with Tan Crone. He has performed solo with orchestra and in chamber music throughout Northern Europe and the Midwestern USA and has appeared on Dutch, Spanish and Chicagoland radio. As a composer he has written repertoire for solo instruments as well as various ensembles ranging from duo to orchestra. His style seeks to combine 20th century innovations with more traditional elements of Western music. His works consist of song cycles, sonatas, chamber music for various combinations, and concertos. Many of these works include the piano. In 1993, the Music Department of the University of Chicago awarded him a four-year stipend to study Composition. His professors there included John Eaton, Jay Alan Yim, Andrew Imbrie, Shulamit Ran and Marta Ptaszynska, Computer Music and Composition with Howard Sandroff, Conducting with Barbara Schubert, and arranging and conducting with Cliff Colnot. In 1995, He received the Paul and Olga Menn prize for original compositions for his Concerto for Piano and Double String Orchestra, performed that same year by the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra with the composer at the piano. In 1996, to critical acclaim, violist Keith Conant premiered his Concerto da Camera with the Contemporary chamber Players led by Barbara Schubert.

He has received commissions from organizations such as the "Rhijnauwen Chamber Music Festival", the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Rembrandt Chamber Players, The Orion Ensemble, the Sebastian String Quartet as well as individual artists Keith Conant, Katinka Kleijn, Noé Cantú and Elizabeth Ko. All works have been performed in past concert seasons. In 2004 his Music for Flute and Piano, recorded by Mary Stolper for Cedille Records, received a favorable review in the Gramophone. He has been Composer in Residence at the Music in the Loft concert series and with Chicago’s premier new music Ensemble CUBE. In this position, he received a grant from the American Composer’s Forum to write music for children’s concerts.

Sebastian Huydts has taught at the College of the University of Chicago, Lake Forest College and The Merit Music Program in Chicago, Illinois. From 1997 until 1999 he taught ear training and theory review at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. From 1998 until 2003, he served as Artist-in-Residence at the Music Department of Columbia College Chicago where he was supervisor and teacher of Keyboard Studies, Music Theory and Computer Assisted Music Production. Since the fall of 2005 he is Director of Keyboard Studies at Columbia College’s Music Department. In addition to his work at Columbia, he joined the faculty of the tuition-free conservatory of Chicago’s acclaimed Merit Music Program in the fall of 2006, where he now teaches in the composition and piano programs.

As a performer, Sebastian Huydts promotes new, and lesser-known contemporary music. He performs with Access Contemporary Music, and can be heard regularly on WFMT radio in Chicago as an artist on the PianoForte Concert Series. He travels frequently to Spain, where he performs with musicians from the Orquestra Simfonica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya in several ensembles. In the summer of 2008 he presented his new solo piano program “The Piano After Eighty” on several concerts in the Netherlands and Spain, where he performed at the Peter the Great Festival and the Festival of Prades Taragona. The program includes music by George Crumb, Howard Sandroff, John Corigliano as well as works by Dutch composer Jochem Slothouwer and his own works.

Sebastian Huydts is represented by Musicantes Concert Agency of Santander, Spain. In addition to his musical activities, he is board member of the PianoForte Foundation in Chicago.

Additional information can be obtained at the composer's web site: www.sebastianhuydts.com