Geert D'hollander, born in 1965 in Sankt Niklaas, Belgium, studied piano, composition, choral conducting, harmony, and fugue at the Antwerp Conservatory and obtained his Masters there in 1987. He had already been awarded a carillon diploma with highest honours in 1982 from the Royal Carillon School Jef Denyn in Mechelen, where he has been teaching carillon and composition since 1983. He is the city carillonneur of Antwerp, Gent, Lier, and Sankt Niklaas and was carillonneur at the University of California at Berkeley from 1997 til 1999. D'hollander gives regular concerts in Europe, Canada, and the USA and has won prizes at many carillon and composition contests, among others at the Queen Fabiola carillon competition in Mechelen, Belgium in 1987 and at the Grand Prix Europeèn de Composition Chorale in Tours, France in 2003. In 2008 he was awarded the University of California at Berkeley’s medal for distinguished service to the carillon, and in 2011 he received the Dutch ANV-Visser Neerlandia prize for his carillon composition Ciacona. D'hollander has recorded several CDs and written many works for carillon. He is a board member of the Flemish Carillon Association, a guest instructor at the Dutch Carillon School in Amersfoort, and teaches at the Roosevelt Academy of Music in Middleburg, the Netherlands since 2007. He gives master classes in carillon in Europe and the USA and is often asked to sit in the juries of carillon competitions and exams. He and his wife and colleague, the carillonneur Liesbeth Janssens, perform as the Hemony Duo, and give concerts of works for two carillonneurs.
