Seppe Gebruers (born May 9, 1990) is a Belgian musician, composer and improvisor. He is also a teacher and researcher at KASK conservatory Ghent. Gebruers plays both solo and in bands. His work ranges from jazz to contemporary classical music.
Gebruers has, since his first concerts at the age of twelve, gained a reputation as an adventurous and uncompromising musician. Currently, he investigates the possibilities of quartertones in piano, composition and improvisation.
Early life
Gebruers started to play classical piano when he was 8 years old, but soon became interested in jazz. Jef Neve became his teacher and at age 12 he played in Belgium and abroad with his pianotrio (with Jakob Warmenbol and Nathan Wouters). In 2004 he performed at Sportpaleis for Night of the Proms. The same year he won a grant for Young Musical Talent.
At age 17 he shared the stage with Jim Black and Andrew D’Angelo and met musicians such as Kris Defoort, Bill Carrothers, Eric Thielemans, and Jozef Dumoulin.
At the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp he studied both jazz (with Erik Vermeulen) and classical piano (with Levente Kende). Gebruers started his education with a clear vision: “I knew which direction I wanted to go in: I wanted to make contemporary music that sounds intuitive."
While Gebruers often clashed with the traditional ways of the academy, he quickly developed a strong connection with Vermeulen. The latter quickly concluded that ‘he had nothing left to teach’ and the teacher-student relation soon developed into one of musical sparring partners.
Later life and career
Gebruers was the leader of the large ensemble Ifa y Xango which won the 2011 Jong Jazztalent Gent award and performed at Gent Jazz in 2012.
Their “irreverence, brought about by a sense of quasi-naïve frankness, would become the group’s and Gebruers’ trademark”.
Their first album ‘Abraham’ was selected by New York City Jazz Record (US) as ‘Best Debut Releases 2013’. Their second album ‘twice left handed \\ shavings’ (2015) experiments with electronic music. Here Gebruers plays with electronic instruments and live sound processing.
In these years, Gebruers also collaborated closely with his teacher Erik Vermeulen. They formed a piano duo and in 2013 they released their album ‘Antiduo’. Later, the duo became a quartet with drummers Marek Patrman and Eric Thielemans, resulting in the album ‘Rorschach’ (2019).
About Gebruers’ performance in ‘Antiduo’, the press wrote:
“Mean, against the grain, and unhindered by standard musical practice, Gebruers develops an unfettered entity, which is not in the least bit concerned about what is allowed or taboo, or the way things are supposed to be.”
In 2013 Gebruers’ group Bambi Pang Pang (with Viktor Perdieus (saxophone) and Laurens Smet (double bass)) played at Jazz Middelheim with the legendary American drummer Andrew Cyrille. This collaboration led to another album ‘Drop your plans’ (2015).
At the heart of this album lies an exploratory spirit that combines the lyrical with the abstract, and the sensitive and intuitive with the rational. A warm, intimate and generous statement that first and foremost believes in the lasting power of human interaction, the subtle variations in the breaks and the fragments and the story that they might tell." Guy Peters
In 2013 Gebruers co-founded the musical collective Troika, of which he is the artistic director. Troika is an organization that regards improvisation as a means to make music rather than as a genre. With this idea in mind Troika organizes concerts, produces albums and conducts interviews.
Gebruers also forms a duo with the composer and visual artist Charlemagne Palestine. Together, they play four differently tuned piano’s. In 2018, Gebruers’ played a piece composed by Charlemagne for the carillon in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.
Other collaborations include Evan Parker, Paul Lytton, Robin Verheyen and Nate Wooley.
Microtonality
Currently, Gebruers’ major project is the exploration of microtonality. For this, he plays and improvises with two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart.
In 2019 he started a research project at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent, titled ‘Unexplored possibilities of contemporary improvisation and the influence of microtonality in the creation process’. Gebruers: