Petra Vermote (°1968) is composer and guitarist and studied at the Conservatories of Ghent and Antwerp. The studies at the Ghent Conservatoire resulted in First Prizes for solfège, guitar, chamber music, harmony, counterpoint and fugue and in the diploma Nieuwe Structuur 2e Cyclus for guitar (under Baltazar Benítez). In June 1999 she graduated from the Royal Flemish Conservatory in Antwerp as 'Master of Music', specialisation in Composition.
Since 1998 she has received many composition commissions and her music is frequently performed in leading cultural centres in Belgium and on tours and festivals at home and abroad. She composed for a variety of line-ups: chamber music, ensemble (instrumental and mixed vocal-instrumental), orchestra, music theatre, choir, solo vocal, and combines this with composing within a multidisciplinary context (music theatre) in collaboration with writers, directors and visual artists, and with writing for location projects, intercultural collaborations (project with Arab and Western string instruments), animation film and electronics.
Almost all of her works were recorded by the VRT (Klara) and nine of them were released on CD so far.
She has won various prizes for composition: The Triennial Prize Youth and Music for Composition (2001), The "Antoon of the Month" (2003), the Prize Contemporary Music Flanders-Québec (2003), the Prize "Laureate of the Academy", issued by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium (2007), the First Premium of the Provincial Prize for Music of the Province of West-Flanders for orchestras/large ensembles (2015).
Petra Vermote has been a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences and Arts since December 2009.