Thomas Beijer is a Dutch pianist, composer and writer. Born in Haarlem into a Dutch-Indonesian family, he began playing the piano at the age of eight with Loes Geusebroek. At eleven he began studying music theory and music history with Martin Kloos. From 2002 he studied with Marjes Benoist in the Young Talent class of the Amsterdam Conservatory’s Sweelinck Academy, and the Young Masters Study Fund enabled him to take masterclasses with Elza Kolodin in Italy. He also took masterclasses with Jorge Luis Prats, Murray Perahia, Emanuel Ax, Menahem Pressler, Jacques Rouvier and Pascal Devoyon.
From the age of sixteen, Beijer studied with Jan Wijn at the Amsterdam Conservatory. He completed his bachelor’s degree there in May 2009 with the highest distinction, receiving a grade of 10 cum laude, and completed his master’s degree with the same highest distinction in June 2011. His awards include first prize at the Princess Christina Competition. In 2006 he won the national final of the SJMN Competition, was named Young Musical Talent of the Year, and received the prize for the best performance of a contemporary work. The following year he won both first prize and the audience prize at the Young Pianist Foundation Competition. In 2012 he was a laureate and audience-prize winner at the Dutch Classical Talent Competition, formerly the Friends’ Wreath Competition. He received the Dutch Music Prize in February 2022.
Beijer has given concerts in the Netherlands and abroad since the age of ten, including appearances in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Singapore and Japan. In 2008 he made his debut with the Residentie Orchestra under Neeme Järvi at the 2008 Hague Festival Classique, performing César Franck’s Variations symphoniques. He has since appeared as a soloist in piano concertos by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Grieg, Gershwin, Ravel, John Adams and Hans Kox, with ensembles including Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Brabant Orchestra and the Netherlands Student Orchestra. His conducting collaborators have included Ed Spanjaard, Bas Wiegers, Peter Biloen and Gustavo Gimeno. A planned debut in the Master Pianists series at the Royal Concertgebouw on 21 March 2021 did not take place after the series was forced to stop during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A chamber musician, Beijer has been the pianist of the Amsterdam Chamber Soloists since 2009. He has also collaborated beyond conventional classical settings with flamenco guitarist Eric Vaarzon Morel and cabaret performer Diederik van Vleuten. His recordings include a 2008 Brilliant Classics album of works by Johannes Brahms, a 2012 Etcetera Records recording of Sergei Rachmaninoff, and the 2013 Lyrone Records album Canción y Danza, containing music by Isaac Albéniz, Joaquín Rodrigo, Enrique Granados, Federico Mompou, Manuel de Falla and Beijer himself. In 2022 he and Nicolas van Poucke released Mozart: Sonatas for Four Hands on the TRPTK label.
As a composer, Beijer wrote four songs on poems by Jan Wolkers in 2006 at the request of the Province of North Holland, for the writer’s eightieth birthday. His piano quartet Stardust, written for the founding of the Amsterdam Chamber Soloists, appeared in 2009. Later works include Ballade for Two Pianos, written for the piano duo Scholtes-Janssens; Motion Games for violin and piano, written for Rosanne Philippens and Yuri van Nieuwkerk; and Petenera’s Night Music for solo piano, commissioned by the Young Pianist Foundation as the compulsory work for its 2013 competition. He regularly collaborates with director Lucas van Woerkum, who made a film of Motion Games in 2013. Beijer’s works are published by Donemus. His literary debut, the novel No Jalapeños, was published by Prometheus in 2017; the same publisher issued his essay collection As Long as the Music Plays in 2026.