Wim Bex (1977) took his first musical steps at the age of 8 at the music academy of Tongeren, first on trumpet and four years later on tenor trombone. He then studied at the Hasselt secondary school of music and went on to the Lemmens Institute in Leuven, where he switched to bass trombone under the guidance of his teacher, Mr. Michel Tilkin.
After a dozen years of playing with almost all Belgian and some foreign orchestras and ensembles, he was permanently employed by the Limburg Symphony Orchestra in Maastricht from January 1st 2009. After the fusion with the Brabants Orkest in 2013, both orchestras continued as "philharmonie zuidnederland", where Wim was remained until December 2017.
In 2008 he wrote his first composition "Vademecum for Bass Trombone", on request of and recorded by Geert De Vos. It became a great international success. Some of the performers: Charlie Vernon (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), Blair Bollinger (San Francisco Symphony), Denson Paul Pollard (New York MET Orchestra), Brian Hecht (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), ... The work has by now become part of the standard repertoire for graduating conservatoire students.
Commissions for other solo works (tenor trombone, trumpet, tuba, euphonium, tenorhorn) soon followed - all recorded on CD. He also wrote music for symphonic orchestra (children's show 'De Kindertemmer' by the LSO), concert band (opening of the Zuid-Boulevard by commission of the city of Waregem) and various ensembles.
The most important teachers in his musical career are Ludo Verjans, Michel Tilkin and Wim Henderickx. Besides a natural and logical view of a musical score, they taught him above all that music should be approached with an open and positive mind, entirely at the service of 'the story behind the notes'.
