1 song, 17 million streams. On average, hundreds of thousands of listeners a month. To number crunchers, Wouter Dewit is a Spotify sensation, to people who enjoy neoclassical music, the Belgian pianist is a revelation. ‘Here’ is the teacher-slash- composer’s third full album.
As Wouter Dewit walks through his living room, he takes a moment by his piano. He sits down and allows his fingers to run across the black and white keys. Sometimes for five minutes, sometimes for an hour. His compositions have stayed in between those four walls for years, but now his music is travelling the world. When ‘La durée.’ was picked up by the popular Spotify list ‘Peaceful Piano’, this composer from Limburg’s reach grew exponentially. Every month, people from across the globe are now listening to Dewit’s compositions, from Singapore over Los Angeles to Istanbul.
Wouter Dewit specialises in the serene simplicity that is at its best in a domestic atmosphere. He adds a layer of strings to neoclassical music. ‘Here’ is so much more forceful and powerful than his previous work. Classical sounds share the room with other sounds and instruments. Wouter Dewit is breaking out, without losing any of his intensity. “The studio has a W. Hoffman piano that I now know better than ever. You can hear that I’m starting to trust the instrument. And she’s starting to trust me.”
By day, Wouter Dewit is an English teacher, but after school, he’s a family man who’s openly having an affair with his piano. He’s never studied piano, but his time at school was the instigator of the love story nevertheless. “When I was studying at VUB in Brussels, there was a piano in the Kultuurkaffee that I passed on my way to class. I’ve missed an endless amount of classes because I would often not make it past that space. I realised that my study would not end well, but my love for the instrument has never wavered.”
“It’s still my anchor point. It generates meaning in my life. If I would no longer have an audience from tomorrow, that piano would still remain by my side for the rest of my days.” says Wouter Dewit. He recently moved from Maaseik to Hasselt where he was given a residency at CCHA. “Moving to a new, unknown city, means my family and I have had to start again from scratch. You have to re-build a routine, and that has had an influence on my personal life. During those busy months, I’ve had one thing to hold on to the piano.”
For ‘Here’ Dewit once again collaborated with producer Joris Peeters – “The work carries my name, but his contribution can hardly be overestimated” – and he also invited artist that he’s known for a while. “I’m learning to give the musicians around me the trust and space within the boundaries of the compositions. That eventually always benefits the music.”
