Biography

 Christiaan Willemse was born in 1997 in Pretoria, South Africa. At the age of 13, he began his musical education on the violin. He was awarded the first prize in the youth category of the Stefans Grové National Composition Competition in 2012 as well as a composition prize during the 2015 Golden Key Music Festival in Vienna. He completed both his bachelor's and master's studies at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg under the tutelage of Kurt Estermann and Johannes Maria Staud respectively. As a recipient of the Francis Burt Overseas Scholarship for 2023, he had the opportunity to take part in an Erasmus exchange year in the class of Frédéric Durieux at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. There he also benefitted from instruction in electroacoustic music by Yan Maresz, Luis Naon and Grégoire Lorieux. From August 2025 he will further his education as a DMA candidate at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in the class of Michael Hersch.

Participation in various academies and festivals for new music - including the Ink Still Wet Workshop at the Grafenegg Festival (Grafenegg, Austria), Crossroads (Limina) Festival (Salzburg, Austria), ARCo (Salzburg, Austria / Marseille, France) and Académie Ravel (Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France) - has offered him to possibility to work with and learn from eminent composers like Enno Poppe, Yann Robin, Francesco Filidei, Michael Jarrell and Ramon Lazkano. His music has been performed by renowned  musicians and ensembles including Bertrand Chamayou, Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich, oenm (Austrian Ensemble for New Music), Ensemble NAMES and Les Métaboles. He was named a finalist for the Ö1 Talentebörse Composition Award in both 2024 and 2025.