Kris Defoort

Kris Defoort ( born November 30, 1959 in Bruges ) is a Belgian pianist of avant-garde jazz and composer who was known by two operas in Western Europe.

Life and work

Defoort comes from a musical family (his brother is the saxophonist Bart Defoort ). Since 1978, he studied at the Antwerp Conservatory Early Music and Recorder. In 1982, he opted for a more extensive study of contemporary music and jazz at the Conservatory in Liège; there were Frederic Rzewski, Henri Pousseur, Garrett List and Borah Bergman with his teachers. In 1986 he presented his first album with the jazz quintet Diva Smiles, then in 1987 to draw for his further education to New York City. There he took with Vincent Herring and Jack DeJohnette, but also worked with Barry Altschul, Michael Formanek, and Tito Puente and went with Lionel Hampton on a world tour. In 1991 he returned to Belgium, where he founded his band Basement Party, which he partially to the large goal for formation (including with Judy Niemack and David Linx ). In the next few years he was in Western Europe on tour and put the album Sketches of Belgium ( in allusion to Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis and Gil Evans ) before. 1995 followed the Variations on A Love Supreme, which he composed with Fabrizio Cassol and premiered at the jazz festival in Middelheimmuseum. With Mark Turner, Nicolas Thys and Jim Black, he founded the Kris Defoorts Dreamstime. He also played with Octurn, with the ensemble of Garrett List and with Aka Moon and went several times with Lee Konitz on tour. Since the late 1990s, he increasingly concentrated on composing for theater and opera. In addition to ballet and chamber music he wrote the opera The Woman Who Walked into Doors (2001, which was also successful internationally ) and The House of Sleeping Beauties (2009), which was also played internationally.

Defoort teaches at the Conservatory of Brussels composition, arrangement and free improvisation.

Prizes and awards

With his quintet Diva Smilies he won the 1984 jazz competition in the Province of Liege. In 1998, he was honored by the Walloon critics as best Belgian keyboard player of the year.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Sketches of Belgium (1992 )
• Variations on A Love Supreme ( 1995)
• Passages (1999)
• Dreamtime Sound Plaza (2002)