Gerard Bunk was born in 1888 in Rotterdam. As an organist he was self-taught. After a study tour through England and Gemany, he was appointed piano and theory teacher at Bielefeld (Germany). In 1910 he replaced Karl Straube at the Reger-Fest in the Reinoldikirche at Dortmund. This church possessed a new Walcker organ, built according to the principles of the Organ Reform propagated in the Alsace. In 1925 Bunk was appointed organist at the Reinoldikirche. Organ and church were destroyed in 1944. Bunk died in 1958.

Bunk was on friendly terms with Max Reger, whose organ music he wished to make more popular, and with Albert Schweitzer. He wrote his most important organ works in his youth: Variationen und Fuge über ein altniederländisches Volkslied (opus 31, 1908), Legende (opus 29, 1908), Sonate (opus 32, 1909), Passacaglia (opus 40, 1911), Fantasie (opus 57, 1915), Musik für Orgel (opus 81, 1939).