Thomas Zwijsen

Thomas Zwijsen was born in Antwerp, Belgium (1988). He started his musical journey at the age of 9 while taking classical guitar lessons from Boudewijn Cocks. Eight years later he auditioned at de Kunsthumaniora, a music highschool for young talents. At de Kunsthumaniora his guitar teacher Robert Denies introduced him to the world of Flamenco and Latin. After successfully completing his studies at de Kunsthumaniora, Thomas auditioned at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp. Even though he passed this audition, he decided to expand his musical horizons and started studying Latin/Jazz/Brazilian guitar at the Codarts conservatory in Rotterdam.

Thanks to many new musicians he met in Rotterdam, Thomas could be frequently found playing live on stages throughout the country. Not only did he play solo concerts, he also played in various Latin ensembles, accompanied singer/songwriters and played in Hard Rock bands. Another impressive project he joined at that time was Hallucination City, a symphony for 100 electric guitars composed by Glenn Branca.

After specializing in worldmusic, Thomas decided he wanted to concentrate on playing the classical and Spanish guitar repertoire. To achieve this he is now studying classical guitar at the Artez conservatory in Arnhem. His teachers are Frans van Gurp and Lydia Kennedy. He takes jazz guitar lessons from Onno Kelk.

Apart from his activities in classical music and worldmusic, Thomas is active as a guitarist and composer for several Hard Rock, Metal and Progressive Metal bands, and can be found on stages such as Tivolli (Utrecht), De Pit (Terneuzen), Winston Kingdom (Amsterdam), etc.

Since 2007 Thomas has found a perfect way of combining his passion for Metal and his passion for the classical/Spanish guitar. He arranged Iron Maidens hits such as Run To The Hills, The Trooper, Wasted Years, and many more for classical solo guitar. His arrangements receive a fantastic amount of positive reactions on YouTube. On popular demand an acoustic Iron Maiden tribute album called Nylon Maiden will be released later this year.

His interpretations of famous classical guitar compositions, his affection with Flamenco, latin and jazz, his accompanying singers in different genres, his Hard Rock and Heavy Metal concerts and his challenging arrangements and compositions for the acoustic guitar, demonstrate Thomas Zwijsens versatility as a musician/composer.

To see Thomas Zwijsen perform, please visit his YouTube channel:

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