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Lieven Baeyens was born on March 10, 1951, in Wilrijk (Antwerp). His maternal grandmother, Maria Hye, introduced him to the world of music. Gaby Van Nuffel (keyboard) and Jan Van Bouwel (music theory) were his first teachers at the Leuven Municipal Conservatory.

He graduated from the Lemmens Institute with several first prizes in 1974. Frans Geysen is a source of inspiration in the fields of composition and analysis. He attended masterclasses in Remscheid (Germany) at the Akademie für Musische Bildung und Medienerziehung (Pavel Blatny, composition, and Peter Trunk, improvisation) and in Moltifao (Corsica, France) with the Fédération nationale d’Associations Culturelles et d’Expansion Musicale (Michel Corboz, stage director).

As an independent student, he studied theatre at the University of Antwerp, as well as at the Universities of Utrecht and Amsterdam on an Erasmus grant.

From 1986 to 2000, he taught dramaturgy, text and music analysis, choral conducting, and theatre projects at the Faculty of Arts of the Eindhoven Academy of Dramatic Art (now Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Tilburg, Netherlands).

With set designer Diane Batens, he founded the IOTA theatre working group (vzw) in 1989, and ten years later, the IOTA company (asbl). Initially based in Barvaux-sur-Ourthe, and since 2006, the workshop at the Poupehan-sur-Semois school in Bouillon has been recognized by the authorities of the French Community of Belgium through a partnership agreement. With professional collaborators, they have created around twenty stage productions for young people and toured Europe with contemporary dance, theatre, visual performances and opera.

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Born in 1940, he completed his musical studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, where he earned First Prizes in solfège, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and organ, as well as the Alphonse Mailly Prize.

A concert performer, he has appeared in Belgium, Germany, and England, giving over 750 concerts. As a composer, he has written more than 165 works, including a symphony, a concerto for organ and orchestra, four cantatas, a concertino for violin and orchestra, sonatas, chamber music, songs, and more.

Among his works, noteworthy are the Piano Sonatina, Opus 63, awarded a prize by the Higher Council for Art and Aesthetics of Europe, and the Concertino for Two Pianos, Opus 30, premiered at the Belgian Music Biennial in 1972 on RTBF (the Belgian French-language public broadcaster).

In 1984, his Esquisse concertante, opus 99, for organ, and in 1990, his Capriccio for clarinet and piano, were required pieces for the end-of-year competitions in the academies of the French Community by the Ministry of Culture.

In 1992, he was invited to compose Classic as the required piece for the Crédit Communal National Competition. His work Hymn from Antwerp for four brass instruments and organ was premiered as part of the “Antwerp, European Capital of Culture” celebrations.

Also in 1992, the Union of Belgian Composers awarded Félix Snyers the “Fuga” trophy in recognition of his ongoing contributions to contemporary Belgian music.

A professor since 1960, he obtained, by examination, the position of director of the Academy of Music and Spoken Arts of Molenbeek-St-Jean in 1977. Félix Snyers is the artistic director of the Musical Hour at the Town Hall of Molenbeek-St-Jean, and editor of the periodical Fuga of the Union of Belgian Composers.

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Belgian pianist, cellist, composer, singer-songwriter and musicologist of Polish origin born in Namur in 1979, Grażyna Bienkowski follows a complete route between university, Conservatories and master classes which will give rise to a most atypical career.

Since 2005, deeply inspired by film music, this former freelancer from BOZAR and the La Monnaie Opera in Brussels composes and creates in a neo-classical and contemporary style, passing through jazz and songwriting with indie rock accents.

As a versatile pianist, Grażyna also performs in various artistic projects, both in the studio and on stage. This has led her to collaborate with Belgian and international artists such as Yan Pechin (FR), Patrice Soletti (FR), DAAN (BE), Jeanna Criscitiello (BE/US), Ken Stringfellow (US),…

In 2010, she released a self-produced solo piano EP (Antichambre). Then, she composed for duos and trios, heavily influenced by jazz and its harmonies. In 2015, songwriting was added to her repertoire. She wrote an entire album (Products of Love) for her female duo Wolves, introducing vocals into her writing for the first time. The album was released on the Liège-based label Homerecords.be in 2018. In 2021, she returned to her musical roots by revisiting Erik Satie with the release of the album “Vexations, vol. 19” on Off-Record Label. This album will be released physically in May 2023 by SOOND LABEL under the title “Vexations Revisited.” The world premiere will take place at the ARS MUSICA contemporary music festival in Brussels in November 2024.

Drawing on all her experiences and keen to remain active in changing the landscape of the music industry, she joined the Belgian Screen Composers Guild in 2017. This association is dedicated to film music and its composers, and she became the first woman member of its board in 2019. Grażyna then joined the composers’ forum and most recently, the Union of Belgian Composers during spring 2026.

Grażyna Bienkowski also composed all the solo piano music for “J’ai oublié d’être un homme” (I Forgot to be a man), a musical and literary performance dedicated to women poets, in collaboration with Belgian singer and actress Karin Clercq. The show toured various Belgian festivals and theaters between 2021 and 2024.

Her latest album “On the Edge of Sylvia” has been released in May 2024 on the French label December Square. It’s a true literary soundtrack whose central theme is the poetry and life of the American Sylvia Plath.  Inside, the listener can find her diverse musical influences as well as the artists who have marked her journey (DAAN, Ken Stringfellow, Jeanna Criscitiello, Douglas Kennedy).

This album, which she considers very personal, brings together her skills in the fields of composition, performance, and also in writing lyrics in English.

In 2025, she recorded the cello part for the piece Works of Art & Copies by Brussels-based American performance artist Jeanna Criscitiello. This commission from Laurence Petrone, curator of the Royal Museums of Art and History, accompanied an exhibition about their plaster casting workshops. The music blends acoustic instruments (primarily Grażyna’s cello) and electronic elements.

In 2026, Belgian conductor Jean-Paul Dessy commissioned a piece from her for the 12 musicians of the Musiques Nouvelles ensemble. T.E.N. (Temporal Eclipse of Now) was created in world premiere at Arsonic Mons and then in Flagey in Brussels at the end of May 2026.

Grażyna Bienkowski is currently in production on her next album, which will have a highly cinematic feel.

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Jean Paul Carrière, a non-professional musician, was born in Etterbeek (a municipality of Brussels) on March 29, 1949, to a father from Liège and a mother from Brussels of Flemish origin.
He was literally immersed in music from childhood. His father had learned (also as an amateur) to play the piano and organ and had composed several pieces for these instruments, as well as melodies. He therefore heard him play not only his own compositions but also other works on the piano and sing his melodies while accompanying himself.
He attended a Catholic school, which gave him the opportunity to be part of the choir and thus sing the entire Gregorian chant repertoire as well as polyphonic religious works.
Music was omnipresent in his home, both on the radio and on records. He began playing a little piano, then taught himself to play the accompaniment guitar.
Later, he studied singing at the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode Academy and, at the Woluwe-Saint-Lambert Academy, piano, accompaniment guitar, and classical guitar, and even some chamber music. For several years, he accompanied himself on guitar at liturgical services at Don Bosco College and the Saint Luc Clinics in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. From 2008 onward, he began composing for piano and gradually for other instruments; he then set poems to music and composed several songs. His catalog includes more than 230 works.

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Michel Defourny, born in 1957, is an engineer and a self-taught composer.

He holds a degree in electromechanical engineering and a doctorate in Applied Sciences from the University of Liège. However, alongside his studies and later his career, he has always been drawn to classical music, in which his parents immersed him from a very young age. As he likes to say, he learned to compose music the way a child learns to speak: by listening and experimenting.

As a self-taught composer, he wrote his first compositions during his adolescence and while studying classical guitar at the Grétry Academy in Liège. These short guitar pieces are improvisations that have taken shape through repeated playing. A few years ago, he compiled his best pieces into two collections:

• Ambiances musicales (10 pieces)
• Pièces caractéristiques pour guitare (8 pieces)

which are available on the online sheet music site FreeScore.

Around the age of 20, he took over the direction of a choir, which he led for 17 years, during which time he harmonized and composed numerous pieces for four voices.

He then devoted himself to musical composition more generally, exploring various instruments and ensembles. He was fortunate to cross paths with Danielle Baas, who regularly featured him in the concerts she organized, allowing him to meet many composers and musicians, which allowed him to develop his writing and style. In particular, he has written several hexatonic works.