John Gevaert (°1984) studied piano at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp with Levente Kende and Heidi Hendrickx and continued his programme with Jan Wijn at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam. He took master classes with leading artists such as Elisso Virsaladze, Kum Sing Lee, and Boris Petrushansky.
Gevaert won first prize at the Andrée Charlier and Stephan de Jonghe piano competitions. He performed for Wagner societies in Amsterdam and Lyon and received a stipend for the Bayreuther Festspiele in recognition of his passion for Wagner's music.
Since 2007, he and his wife Katrijn Simoens have formed the Piano duo Mephisto. The duo won first prize at the International Grieg Competition in Oslo (2010) and the Concours International de Piano à Quatre Mains de Valberg (2010). In 2011, they won the Friends Prize at the International Chamber Music Competition Almere and in 2012 the second prize at the Torneo Internazionale di Musica in Paris. The duo performed at prestigious festivals such as the Grieg Festival in Oslo and the Chamber Music Session festival in Kiev, and played in famous concert halls such as the Lyon Opera, Versailles Castle, the Palace of Fine Arts and La Monnaie in Brussels, deSingel in Antwerp and the Concertgebouw Brugge.
Their debut CD with works by Liszt and Wagner was released in 2013 (Klara-EMI), followed by a second CD in 2015 with compositions by Röntgen, Rosseau and Tinel (Phaedra).
John Gevaert is attached to the Conservatoire of Antwerp as piano accompanist for the saxophone class, teacher of subsidiary course piano, and co-section chairperson of the keys.