Composition

Michelino Bisceglia is a Belgian composer, pianist, arranger, orchestrator and conductor whose work moves between jazz, film music and the orchestral world. Over more than three decades, he has developed a musical language that brings together improvisation, orchestral colour and storytelling.

As a jazz musician, he has collaborated with artists including Randy Brecker, Bob Mintzer, Toots Thielemans and Dewey Redman. In 1997 he founded the Michel Bisceglia Trio with bassist Werner Lauscher and drummer Marc Léhan. The trio has kept the same line-up ever since, developing a distinctive sound shaped by lyrical writing and close interplay. In 2026 it celebrates its 30th anniversary with the album The Virgo.

Bisceglia has also built an extensive career as an arranger, orchestrator and musical director. His work ranges from jazz trio and big band to choir and symphony orchestra, with collaborations that cross into popular and electronic music. His long-standing partnership with Buscemi produced several projects with the Michel Bisceglia Ensemble, including Jazz Works and music for silent films.

As a film composer, his credits include Marina, Charlotte, My Sailor, My Love, Hannah, Blue Bird, the Netflix series Thieves of the Wood and Pacifica. His score for Marina won the World Soundtrack Award Public Choice Award in 2014, while Charlotte and My Sailor, My Love later received nominations. He also works as an arranger, orchestrator and conductor on other film productions.

Bisceglia has worked with ensembles including the Brussels Philharmonic, Brussels Jazz Orchestra and Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. Alongside his composing and performing career, he teaches composition, arranging, orchestration and film music at the Royal Conservatoire Brussels.

Born in Hamme in 1965, he enrolled at 1986 from KCB where he obtained several first prizes (fugue 1989). In 2000 he rounded off his studies with both a Masters Degree in Music Writing as in Composition (with Rafaël D’Haene). Together with his studies at the Conservatoire he studied Musicology at the KUL which led to a Masters Degree likewise, with a dissertation on the influence of Schumann on Brahms. He teaches at KCB since 1989 (Music Writing and Composition) and also at the Academy of Music of Schaarbeek (Music History). 

His compositions are regularly performed in and outside Belgium and cover all genres : songs (in Dutch, French, German), chamber music (among them 3 string quartets and a sextuor), orchestral music (also a clarinet concerto) , music for solo instruments, choir. In 2018 his Oratorio ‘ Letters from the soul’ was performed on several occasions in Belgium and the Unites States. He gave masterclasses at several colleges and universities in Italy and the USA.
He is member of the Robert Schumann Gesellschaft Düsseldorf and  Alumnus of the Académie Royale de Belgique.
 

Peter Swinnen was born on 31 January 1965 in Lier. From 1983 to 1992 he studied at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, where he earned first prizes in music history, cello, chamber music, composition and practical harmony. He became a graduate of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo after studying with André Laporte from 1989 to 1992. In 1993 he took master classes with Michael Finnissy and five years later with Brian Ferneyhough. In 2009 Swinnen also obtained a Doctorate of Arts from the Free University of Brussels.

From 1990 to 1997 he taught cello in various music schools, and since 1992 he has also taught analysis at KCB. In 2002 and 2004, he added Music Technology and Composition respectively. He also worked from 1997 to 2004 at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven for the ear training programme UniSono. Between 2004 and 2015 Swinnen worked on a project concerning score analysis, in cooperation with KCB and the Mathematics Department of the Free University of Brussels. In addition he worked freelance for VRT (the national broadcast cooperation) until 2008 and is regularly asked to provide the Live Electronics for various ensembles and also as sound director for CD recordings. From 2008 to 2017 Swinnen was director of KCB. In 2021 he became head of the Music Department of Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel. 

For his complete works he was awarded the 1991 CERA Prize - Youth and Music Flanders, and his opera The Petrifying Blue received the 1992 Provincial Prize for Music Composition from the Province of Antwerp. He also wrote music for the BRTN film Andres, a realisation by Dirk Greyspeirt with choreography by José Besprosvany, which won the Premio Choreografo Elettronico 1993 and, two years later, the 34th Prize Bert Leysen. For his piece Quar'l Peter Swinnen was awarded the "Prix de Musique Contemporaine from Quebec" in 1997. Twice he won the National Composition Competition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition: in 1997 with Canzone and in 2001 with Ciaccona. In 2005 the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences and Arts awarded him the prize Laureate of the Class of Arts.

Annelies Van Parys (°1975) is one of Belgium’s leading composers. She writes solo and chamber music works as well as large orchestral compositions with a great preference for music theatre. Since 2007, as a resident composer of Muziektheater Transparant, she wrote a lot of music theatrical works. Amongst them some remarkable pieces such as RUHE, An Oresteïa and Private View, her first opera that one no less than five prizes including the Fedora-Rolf Lieberman Prize. Together with librettist Gaea Schoeters, she wrote the opera USHER, as a direct commission of Staatsoper Berlin and Folkoperan Stockholm where it was performed in resp. 2018 and 2019 with a revival already in 2020 in Berlin. The opera was nominated for the coveted Opera Awards. She also received lots of praise for A War Requiem for the Belgian National Orchestra and Collegium Vocale Ghent, with Sophie Karthauser and Thomas Bauer as soloists and Hugh Wolff as a conductor that was the closing event of the official commemorations of WWI in Belgium. Her most recent orchestra composition is a commission for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam and will be premiered in January 2021 under the baton of Matthias Pintscher.
More information: www.anneliesvanparys.be