Klaas Coulembier

musicologist . composer . graphic designer

Nederlands

Writing music, writing about music, shaping information graphically, editing and copywriting, giving lectures, ...

An awkward mishmash? Not when the connecting thread is communicating with an audience: making a story comprehensible, presenting an idea attractively. Capturing people's interest for music and stories, and learning from all this along the way. Who could not dream of that?

Klaas Coulembier was born in Ypres (Belgium) in 1984. At the age of 11, he joined the YPRIANA Wind Band as a trumpet player, where he discovered the rich sound world of the wind band. He studied musicology at the University of Leuven, where he obtained his PhD in 2012 and was a postdoctoral research fellow until 2018. He currently works as communication officer for MATRIX [New Music Centre] and as a freelance musicologist, composer and conductor.

Klaas has composed several works since 2007, mainly for Symphonic Wind Band. His composition Resilience (2015) was awarded with a prize from the province of West-Flanders and was performed several times by the Royal Symphonic Band of the Belgian Guides under the baton of maestro Yves Segers. In 2020, this composition won the Red Note New Music Festival Composition Contest in Illinois, US.

In recent years, Klaas has directed his activities more towards composing new pieces and promoting his music through his own publishing label Ypress Digital Music Editions. In 2019, he was commissioned to write the compulsory piece for the Flemish Open Wind Band Competition by Vlamo (The Garden of Earthly Delights). Around the same time, he was approached by maestro Dirk De Caluwe to compose a challenging piece for the Royal Wind Band of Schelle (Tramontana). These compositions formed the starting point for a growing oeuvre of original compositions for Wind Band, Fanfare Band and Brass Band.

His music is published by De Haske (Hal Leonard Europe) and Ypress Digital Music Editions

what happened before ...

1996-2002 Latin-Mathematics @ Sint-Vincentiuscollege Ieper

1992-2006 Trumpet, piano, music theory @ Stedelijke Academie voor Muziek en Woord Ieper (Dé Academie)

2002-2006 Master in musicology @ KU Leuven

2006-2009 Research Assistant @ KU Leuven

2009-2013 Doctoral student @ FWO & KU Leuven

2013-2018 Post-doctoral researcher & guest professor @ KU Leuven, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, LUCA School of Arts

2020-2022 Guest professor in musicology @ KU Leuven

2023-2024 Copywriter Bozar

2018- . . . . . . freelance

2020-. . . . . . communications officer MATRIX [New Music Centre]