DESCRIPTION:
The young pianist Bram De Looze (25!) is widely considered the biggest talent in Belgian Jazz. He is developing his music alongside the LABtrio (w. Lander Gyselinck & Anneleen Boehme) and as leader of Septych; a 7-piece ensemble including 2 cellists, 3 horns, piano and drums. This international group features Robin Verheyen, Gebhard Ullmann, Bo Van Der Werf, Flin Van Hemmen, Daniel Levin and Lester St-Louis. His first album as a leader with Septych is taken under the wings of the Clean Feed Records Label and will be released In autumn 2015. 

Bram De Looze also opens up his musical frontiers in the Dre Hocevar Trio (Coding Of Evidentiality 2015) and Stephanos Chytiris’ Flux (PYR|N 2014), both arise out of an intense period residing in New York.Improvisation is the main fundament in Bram De Looze’s piano playing. He draws his influences out of creative music, historical and contemporary classical music and certainly jazz which plays a major role in his musical development. 

With a curious mind Bram De Looze uncovers the value of fortepiano’s, being stunned by an encounter with the piano collection of Chris Maene. The desire to explore new results in a solo piano performance spoke to his imagination; on stage with multiple originals and exact replica’s of piano’s built by excellent piano builders as Anton Walter, Broadwood, Pleyel or Erard. One by one pearls in Maene’s collection.

A wide dynamical range and clear tone by piano’s with parallel strings opens up a path to an approach with a different focus, which is not always possible with a standard, cross-stringed piano. Through this way, the array of new ideas unfolds a soundplatform in which the characters of the piano’s are accentuated.

Bram De Looze uses composition as material to direct the spontaneous musical constructions inspired by the total playing-experience of each piano. This performance embodies a relationship between the imagination of the pianist and the 19th century sounding piano’s. Every instrument contains its own mechanics, materials and structure and generates surprising differences in tone, resonance, timbre, volume, projection. Bram De Looze also pays attention to the repertoire that these piano’s have known and blends it with his own interpretation of playing these instruments. Furthermore the use of different temperaments make the contrasts of the piano’s even wider.